Petals on a Rose
by Just the Wind
Summary: They'd write letters to the moon just to prove that their love was so out of this world that an extraterrestrial could chance upon it and feel the emotion vibrating off the stained pages and know that somewhere, somehow, against all odds, two people were crazy about each other. A collection of RosexScor oneshots. Rated T.
1. Glued Together by Him

**A/N: Hi everyone! This story (Petals on a Rose) is pretty old. I've been adding to it for the past few years, a few one shots every once and a while that depict all different possibilities and personalities. Anyway, I've never been happy with the original chapter one, so I am making this chapter the new chapter one. If you've already seen it, that's why. Anyway, happy reading!**

**Also, this is painfully cliché and you hopefully won't hate me for that. Yeah.**

She's swirling and twirling, leaving behind a trail of sparks. She's graceful, a butterfly flitting around the dance-floor, all gem colors and pretty smiles. And he's captivated.

Her dress is an emerald green, the color so rich that it would not be amiss outfitting the highest quality stones, all shimmer and sparkle and so perfectly_ her_. He exhales softly, almost afraid that his breath might blow out her flame but it doesn't because all the glamour, the shine, is coming from within; she's radiant and nobody, no amount of water and quick rushes of air, can extinguish her fire. For this he is immeasurably grateful.

But she's burning away (how long until there's nothing left?). Feel her forehead, fever ravages her brain until the room is a haze of pretty colors that her delirious mind tends to misinterpret. Her eyes are falsely bright, shining with an overflow of ambitions and innocent happiness. This is her place, here, right here, but not with these people who watch her with suspicion and a mixture of awe and pity. Don't! She wants to scream, avert your eyes. Leave me alone! And maybe she does scream it, but they don't hear and they keep watching, as if they want to puzzle her out even as she's willing to solve all the mystery if they would only listen.

The dancing has her legs tired and her soul sore, so she stumbles out, away from the staring eyes that make her feel like she's just in one big fishbowl and they're all children with their faces pressed against the glass, noses scrunched like pugs. And everything is so heavy, even though there's no weight on her back. She's bowing under the pressure, bending, and she's so scared that this will be the straw that will break it all.

He follows her out the door.

"Hullo," he murmurs, careful to keep his voice soft to avoid frightening her. She looks like a bird, bones hollow, eyes desperate for scraps (of what? She's refused all food for the past week). He momentarily fears that she might take wing and float off into the velvet sky, a dove disappearing into the endless starry night.

She responds with a polite, "hi," but stares straight past him. She doesn't see him, the little white ghost of a boy, small statured and a shock of white unruly hair.

"Are you-" he pauses, unsure of a socially acceptable way to complete his inquiry, "okay?" Her head rotates, looking as far away from him as possible, eyes still distant, mouth pressed in silence. He gingerly sits down on the stone bench next to her, maintaining a small space out of respect for the space-case of a girl.

He thinks that she's not going to say anything, that all the answer he'll get is her hunched posture and the clenching of her fists. But then she speaks. "I don't know. I think I am, but then everything swirls around and people treat me like I'm made of glass or china, delicate swirls of blue on the creamy white. My grandmum has some plates made of china, they're beautiful but we never touch them because we're all so terrified of breaking them. People won't touch me- they think I'll shatter. Will I?" She looks at him with wide eyes, the honesty of the question leaves him almost speechless.

He finally finds his voice, and the certainty of it astounds him, "Are you already broken?"

She takes a deep breath, air audibly swooshing into her lungs, "I think I'm breaking, but I haven't completely fallen apart yet."

"What you need, m'dear, is some superglue to piece you back together." He's not sure where that remark came from, but her face brightens in a way that looks healthy, not sickly, and he feels like he's glowing just from the accomplishment of making her smile.

"Yeah, I guess that's about right."

"You deserve better, Rose," he says so quietly that she almost misses it.

She laughs bitterly, "I don't think there's such a thing anymore- there's just bad people and even worse people."

"He was wrong to do that, but you can't keep punishing yourself," Scorpius tells her, eyes bright with something that looks like concern (and is that love, dear? You know you can't do that, the girl's a mess and you're not good at cleaning up).

The moonlight dances across her skin and she looks radiant with a sad beauty that's haunting. She straightens her back and tilts her chin up to the sky, her heart shaped face absorbing the pure white light. "Look at the stars," she says in a voice so musical that he thinks she might be singing a song for her ears only, "aren't they incredible tonight?"

"Yeah," he agrees, voice soft so as not to interrupt her trance-like state.

"When I was little, he and I would set up sleeping bags in the field and sleep under the sky. It seemed like the nights were infinitely long, filled to the brim with our laughter and the reflection of the moon in his eyes. We'd curl close to each other and I could feel sparks where his skin brushed mine and I thought that this was it- my future, I mean. One of those nights, there was an impossible amount of light, the stars seemed bigger than just pinpricks in the sky, and he leaned in and kissed me and I thought that I might fly away. I thought that those were the most beautiful stars I'd ever see, but tonight's are just as gorgeous.

"Why," she still speaks with her head thrown up the sky, her gaze never falling on him, "can they shine so brightly even when he's not here? They were ours', why can they be just as special without him?" There's desperation in her voice, a plea for an explanation that makes his heart ache in sympathy.

A tear runs down her face, the droplet catching all the light coming from the universe and containing it until it drips off her chin. Another takes its place quickly, and he's dying to run his thumb under her eye and rid them both of the beautiful eyesore that is her pain. He stays still.

Without warning, she falls against him, her head resting on his chest. "Oh, Rose," he sighs. Her eyes droop closed, her fingers loosening their grip on his wrinkled black button-down shirt, her breathing evens, and she falls asleep. "Oh, Rose," he repeats, even quieter.

She stays pressed against him and it feels like heaven, but it's late and they can't stay out here all night. With strong arms, he lifts her into the air, cradling her tiny frame against his chest. She mumbles something, but shows no signs of stirring. Just like that, holding her with a gentle grip as if she's about to fall to pieces in his arms, and maybe she is, he carries her up the stairs and back to the common room. She smells like fire and lilac and stars.

As carefully as possible, he lays her out on the blue velvet couch, resting her head on a pillow. With a quick wave of his wand, he summons a blanket from his room to lay across the sleeping girl. He brushes his lips to her forehead and turns to leave, but stops right before exiting the room. There's one more thing he needs to do for her before retiring to bed. One final summoning charm later, he retreats up the stairs and into his dormitory, flopping onto his bed and falling into a heavy sleep that's tainted with the light of the moon and the scent of lilac.

In the morning, the early sun rouses Rose from her slumber. She looks around, confused by her familiar surroundings. Next to the couch, on a table of wood marked with rings from glasses left irresponsibly sans coaster, is a note. She rubs her eyes free of sleep and blur and reaches for it. The handwriting is clear and beautiful, lacking embellishment but almost ornate with its simplicity. Attached to the note is a small tube of Superglue, the note instructs her to "use it when you feel like you are breaking".

She smiles and its all sunny days and blue skies and fluffy clouds with not even a hint of celestial fire.

**A/N: Y'all know the drill, review or face my imaginary fire-breathing dragon. Yeah, it's gonna get you. Please, don't favorite or alert without dropping me a little something to make my day.**


	2. Starving for Him

**Eating disorder fics, I have a strange fascination with them. If this could be triggering, do us all a favor and don't read it, I love all my readers too much to be responsible for a relapse. There is one swear word in here, but it's the big one, sorry. It felt so good to write this, it isn't poetic or flowery, it's the writing of a teenage girl, and yeah, I really identify with this. And, JKR has a dramatically different writing style, through some savvy detective work we can deduce that I wrote this piece (*gasp*) and, I am not her (*double gasp*).**

It was a Game to her, a Game that led to –in her opinion- benefits. It was a selfish, petty Game, but she couldn't stop even if she wanted to. She just wanted, she wanted to be perfect. Not for him, no, she would never be so cliché as to try to better herself for a boy (even if he was extraordinarily attractive), it was for her.

Boys loved her hair, they'd run their fingers through it, entwining their entire hands up to the wrist as they locked lips and shared heated moments of passion. They simply adored it, so they could never figure out why she hated it. That fiery hair that just took everyone's breath away, yeah, she despised it.

Rose had always felt like something wasn't right, like she was a puzzle with one single piece missing, one single hole in the perfectly arranged piece of art. It wasn't that she felt incomplete; she just didn't look like what she thought she felt like. If it had been up to her, she would have been different, she never could put her finger on exactly the right physicalization for her soul, but that didn't stop her from trying. It wasn't so much the hair, or the freckles, or the pale-as-the-moon skin as it was the whole package. She looked like a clone of every other Weasley that ever existed. And she hated it, she hated that she was so similar to her entire family.

All Rose ever wanted was to stand out. To be different. She always felt (though she would never even dream of admitting it) lost. Lost and wandering and lonely. Rose Weasley, lonely, such an oxymoron yet the absolute truth. Rose was a girl so surrounded by friends, always chattering to some person or another, to hear that she was lonely would have made anyone who knew her laugh. That's what killed her. They'd laugh. No one ever took Rose seriously; she was just one of so many Weasleys, not the first, nor the last, not the brightest, the dumbest, the most athletic, the most talented. There was no one thing she could call her own. Until, until she started playing the Game. Until she go really good at the Game. They all noticed her then.

Rose never felt unloved, just unnoticed. People would ask her questions and then walk away while she was answering. She didn't do it because she was angry, she didn't do it to lash out. She would have never been able to explain why, but it was an accident. Oh, no, it's no accident that one begins to deny all food and purge the food that does trespass their lips, but it was an innocent accident that she started down that path.

Yeah, in a way she did it for him. God knows, he did notice her when she really got good at her Game. She did it for him because it felt so good, _so fucking good_, to finally be perfect enough. She told herself in the beginning that it was making him love her, but she knew it wasn't. He didn't love the skinny frame that had bones jutting out and awkward elbows, he loved the girl. The skinny frame just gave her the means to present herself to him, to finally be noticed.

She was a Slytherin for a reason, that was all the Game was, a trick. It wasn't an illusion, it did come with very real consequences, but all the same, it was a trick. It gave her something to grab onto and hold tightly. Something to make the ache in her chest go away a little bit. The price wasn't too steep; she was more than willing to pay. In exchange for a little dizziness and a couple fainting bouts (who cared anyway, fainting was _so _romantic) she got him.

The really sad thing was, even if she knew where her little Game was headed, towards hospital beds and wires and bones jutting out, stretching pale freckled skin grotesquely tight over the impossibly acute angles, she still would have played. As unhappy as she felt in the end, it was worth it, it was all worth it because they had gathered around for _her_. Nothing was ever for her, but they all sat and looked worried and cried and it nourished her in a way no food ever could. It didn't give her life, their tears provided no nutrition, but it made her feel, if only briefly, loved.

_He use to pass her in the hallways, he wouldn't even nod, there'd be not even the smallest flicker of recognition in his eyes. The first day she knew he looked at her for sure, really looked at her, she had done so well at the Game. That day she at only one apple and she was really feeling it. On good days, days like that one, she ate so little that the pangs were sharp and insistent. It felt good, to burn a little inside with hunger; it was a burn she felt special (for once in her life, special) for being able to resist. _

_ Needless to say, she was a little lightheaded, but in the good, floaty way. When she saw him in the Great Hall, he was breath taking. Literally. As in, she forgot to breathe. He noticed her sliding to the ground and caught her with his strong, toned arms. He carried her to the hospital wing and stayed until she woke up (still a bit dizzy) to make sure she was okay. He was worried about her; she knew that from the way his grey eyes glinted with just a touch of fear. It was in her nature to abuse knowledge like that, so she really committed herself to the Game and managed to need his assistance in standing so frequently he took to just slinging an arm around her waist whenever he saw the now-waif-like girl. _

_ It started out as a thing about her weight (well, her lack thereof was his concern) but he quickly began to love her quirky jokes and pealing laughter. The two of them became Slytherin's couple, and, in true tradition, their relationship started with her tricks. Her mother wouldn't have been proud of her methods, but that didn't matter because her mother didn't notice her enough anyway. They dated, it was perfect, he was her knight and shining armor and she was the picture perfect damsel in distress._

It worked out just like she had planned, well; she hadn't foreseen the dying part but that didn't matter. Rose was starving for attention in any way she could get it, she didn't just let the Game take over her life, she encouraged it. She withered and wasted away, starved herself until she was no more than bones and she milked every minute of it, because, even if it was her last breath, everyone was watching her for once.

**Please, please, please promise me that you'll at least attempt to notice other people; I know it can be hard but this situation isn't far from the truth in some cases. When people don't feel acknowledged or loved or noticed they will do things to draw attention. I know because once upon a time I went down that path. Please, just learn to really listen to people, if you ask them how their day was or how they feel, don't just ignore the response. *steps off soapbox***


	3. Writing to Him

**This is a mostly true story; I'm not old enough for the timeline to be right, but its close enough. The book she mentioned? I have one, obviously it's not magic-ed but we did use them all the time. So, yeah, I'm playing around with different writing style, how do you like this one? Don't forget to review, virtual cookies for everyone who does.**

_The truce the two of them had was nice, beautiful even. If she closed her eyes for long enough amidst the chatter during one of their lapses in conversation, she could imagine the rumors swirling around them as physical objects. And, you know, it wasn't that bad. Neither of them resented their friendship. Neither of them cared what other people said. Both of them really wanted to lean in and kiss the other. Needless to say, neither of them did._

_ In the years that followed, she could always be seen accompanied by a torn and battered pink book. It was spiral bound, no more than a few inches across. She could never be found without it, though, strangely enough, she was never seen writing in it. Sure, a few people had caught her, back pressed against a stone wall reading it, tears coating her eyes with a shiny glaze, but it was so infrequent that she actually wrote in the little book anymore, and no one was ever around when she did take a quill to it's white pages, anyway_.

When they were first years, they were happy, giggling kids. They told each other everything, laughed over the stupidity of the other's sex, discussed the uselessness of the American penny. The two of them were just like that, best friends and the other's closest confidant. They loved to debate and to make the other laugh, both of which they practiced frequently.

Second year came around; suddenly she was looking a little different. Over the summer, some small curve began to grow on her chest, she lost a little of the roundness in her face, and, very suddenly, there were other boys who spoke to her. He, on the other hand, grew taller and his eyes lost their sparkle, instead becoming much more serious. Neither was sure if they liked the changes. Things continued as normal, but now there were some silences with awkward pauses that never happened before.

For the rest of her life, she always remembered third year being her best time at Hogwarts. It was a period of discovery for the pair, instead of just noticing the slope of her breast or the perfect way his hair flopped in front of his face, they began to act on it. They were impulsive, children still even if they'd argue they weren't. They'd still laugh and play, but now with the silent plan to hold the other's hand. When their palms first touched, not for some game or roughhousing, but in a subtly more romantic way, she felt his turn clammy with her touch. Her hand was sweaty, sticky and so very perfect. Neither was sure what they were doing, but they did try to hold on.

Fourth year she came to school with all of her textbooks, already read with summaries for each chapter, just like every year. He came with a glowing remebrall and promises from his father that the textbooks would be coming via owl, just like every year. But, fourth year she also brought two little books. The two of them laughed as he watched, amazed, her charm them to allow the pair to communicate during especially boring lessons. He thought she was a genius, she just blushed. All that year he wrote in his little blue book and she responded in her little pink one. Their classmates knew exactly what the two were doing, but nobody felt the need to tell any of the professors, instead, everyone spent class watching the pair.

By year five she was so obviously smitten, it was pathetic. He'd tease her in their little books, bugging her about whom the object of her desires was. She'd blush and say it didn't matter because the boy didn't like her anyway. He threatened to beat them into submission. She laughed at the irony. It was so obvious to everyone in the lessons that they shared that she was in love, obvious to every single person but the one that really mattered, to her at least. The two of them were so different from the little kids they use to be, back when they were young and free and innocent. They were so different, they didn't even notice as they slowly grew apart. The old Rose and Scorpius never would've let that slide, before their friendship meant everything to them, but now priorities were changing. For better or worse, she thought it to be for the worse, though she'd never tell him.

She spent sixth year with a broken heart. He spent it with Michelle. In her eyes, the pair was so obviously wrong, but his were clouded with lust and she didn't want to hurt his feelings by admitting her own. She didn't hate Michelle, but she couldn't help but resent the girl who took her precious Scorpius and corrupted him. She and Michelle had been friends, but the latter girl broke off their friendship abruptly when she discovered Rose's true feelings. Rose didn't care; she just missed the discussions and debates with Scorpius, neither ever seemed to have the time anymore.

Seventh year was a blur for her. Time passed in that agonizingly slow way except when it mattered, and then it sped up until she was dizzy from trying to keep up with it all. The two who had previously been so close didn't speak anymore, by no fault of either party, it was just that neither had anything to say. That's what killed him, that he had nothing to say to her anymore. There was no acknowledgement more than a simple nod or a rushed smile shared in a bustling hallway. She wanted him back, any part of him, so bad it actually hurt sometimes.

_He had been her best friend, and for a couple breathless seconds, her boyfriend. She couldn't figure out what happened. She turned to the book for answers. The book with scribbled doodles and secret notes, the book filled to burst with inside jokes and heartfelt conversations. She hoped it would make her understand better, so she stole hours away pouring over it, back against a cold stone wall. When she closed her eyes, she could imagine the pressure of his lips on hers, when she opened them, there was only a small pink book, the words blurred by her own tears._


	4. Staying with Him

Lost Causes

**I think I have a thing for writing super depressing stuff. I kinda suck at all that fluff that makes everyone smile, yeah; make-out scenes really aren't for me. Now, if you read this and cry, you have to tell me in the comments. I'm an emotional writer, I cry when I write stuff like this and I want to hear how it affects you all. So, you really should review this, okay?**

"I hate you." Her words aren't screamed by a hoarse throat, they don't hold shallow anger or petty pain. They are flat, emotionless, and that scares the shit out of him.

"Rosie-" He starts, but she turns, coldly, to face him.

"You have no right to call me Rosie. After everything, you don't even have the right to say my name." Her façade has been breached, he can see how the words, the situation is affecting her in her eyes. Rose was always such a good liar but she never did master keeping her thoughts out of her eyes.

"Rose, I'm sorry." His apology is offered up; he uses it like one would money, a method of paying for goods and services. His apology is an item he is gambling but she isn't taking the bait.

"Don't you dare, don't you _fucking dare_, tell me you're sorry. I'm sorry too, I'm sorry that you are an asshole. I'm sorry I ever loved you. I am sorry, so sorry, I ever trusted you." Her last words hit him like poisoned darts. It was one thing for her to retract her love; he had expected that, but her trust? Rose was so methodical; she never fully trusted anyone, anyone at all, until the two of them became close. Rose's words feel like someone was pulling a knife out of his chest, a space that had never been there before was suddenly created but then quickly became unnecessary again. He felt empty. He knew, knew she would take a while to love him again after taking him back, he always planed on her taking him back, but he never thought she'd lose trust in him.

The fan teases her hair, bringing ringlets of red up until they fly around her freckled face, they create a halo, she, he thinks with a smile, looks like an angel. With her fiery temper and her red as embers hair, she looks like an angel that fell down to Hell's fires. He loves her for that, for the way that she was willing to fight for what she believed in. Of course, he loves it a whole lot less when she believed in never forgiving him.

"Rose, I'm so sorry. I screwed up. I screwed up big time, but I did it because I loved you. I didn't want to see you hurt, not now, not when we only had a little more time. Rosie," He pauses to see if she'd interrupt this time, she doesn't, "Rosie, I love you. You have to believe that, I did this for you."

When he looks up at her, her eyes are wet. Rose, the tough, hardened girl, the girl who trusted no one, looks so close to tears.

"What'd they say?" Her voice is small, she sounds defeated. "Scorp, tell me exactly what they said. You owe it to me, tell me now." As she speaks, her words begin to surround her like armor, coating her with the promise of momentary safety.

"Rose, don't make me do this. What happens when I tell you? We start counting down the days? I don't want to have a clock ticking for the entirety of the time we have left." He sounds so genuinely sad but his words are insistent.

"Yes Scorpius. We count down the days because I want to know exactly when I am going to wake up and not see you lying next to me. We count down the days because that's all we have. We count down the days because if we don't they may just slip by. Don't you get it Scorp? I need to know. I need to know how long we have left. Because, because it would just kill me if my last words to you were something horrible." Her voice changes, becomes gentle. It wraps around him like a cozy blanket or a familiar robe. "Scorpius, I didn't mean what I said before, I was just angry because you kept this from me. Scorpius, what if it were to happen right now? What if the last thing I ever said to you was how much I hated you? I have to know Scorpius. I'm begging you, tell me."

"I can't. I can't. If I did, you'd treat me like a porcelain doll. If I told you you'd fuss around and keep me from just filling this little time we have left with things I want to do."

"So it's soon," she whispers, half to herself, "it must be soon. How long Scorpius, months, weeks?" Tears are streaming down her face in earnest now. He reaches out and strokes her cheek, fighting the stinging in his own eyes.

"Days, Rose, days. They told me I have days left. This time next week, it'll all be over. I have days." She reaches over to fuss with his sheet, tucking it closer to his weary body.

"Can I get you some tea? Do you need any-" Her eyes are full of concern now, but his voice overlaps hers as she tries to tend to him.

His words tumble out, one over the other, "Don't you get it Rose? This is what I'm talking about! I don't want this. I refuse to spend my last days, my last days with you, my last days on earth, bed ridden and cared for. I want to go out, out, out! Out of here. Don't make this house, this room, this bed my prison cell for the last days I can actually be happy. What harm could it do? Make me die faster? That isn't even possible. I have so little time; don't make me spend it miserable to still be alive." His voice is frantic at times, then pleading, then angry. He mutters the last sentence with a piercing bitterness.

"Scorpius," she murmurs, seeming to only say his name because she has so little time left to say it. Her eyes show her dilemma, on one hand, he should be happy while he can; on the other, these few days should be spent with him comfortable, not exerting himself.

"Rosie, love, I'm so sorry I didn't tell you. I just didn't want you to think I was a marked man. I wanted you to love me and I was afraid, so afraid, that you wouldn't anymore once you found out." Tears sparkle in his eyes, his words are drawn out and slow.

Her laugh is bitter and high pitched, her voice disbelieving, "You thought that I'd reject you, the love of my life, just because you were sick? Don't you know me at all? I'm a sucker for lost causes."

At this he smiles, "And, with three days left before this damn cruse kills me, I'm the poster child for a lost cause."

They spend their last few days together laughing; he even gathers the energy to take one last flight, seated right behind her with his arms looped around her waist. He visits the people he loves and spends every second with her. The two can't be separated; it's heartbreaking for both to know that a permanent separation is coming so soon. On the morning of the fourth day since their argument, she holds him tight as she watches him struggle for breaths, each of his heartbeats coming weaker than the last.

"I love you Scorpius," She whispers, tears sparkling in her eyes, "I love you so much."

"I love you too Rose, I'll always love you, and don't you ever forget that. You live until your good and old and ready to die, then I'll see you again, okay? I'll see you, Rosie."

Her tears hit the pillows that cradle his head as she watches him fight for a breath.

"Oh Scorp," She bites her lip in the way that always use to make him laugh. She looks horrified that she has been confronted with a problem she cannot solve.

"Goodbye, my love. Thank you for not giving up on this lost cause." His voice is so weak; it just makes her cry harder.

In a moment of dry eyed clarity she whispers, "I could never give up on you."

**Now, y'all have to review. I haven't been getting a lot of reviews, I love writing but knowing that you enjoy reading it makes me happy **


	5. Forgetting Him

**Okay, I had no views on any of my stories yesterday. It was the weirdest thing, because I don't think that's happened since I opened my account. What do I have to do to get those (few) who do view this story to comment? Because I'm trying really hard here to publish frequent and semi-lengthy chapters that are GOOD. I'm not a horrible writer (I hope) and I use correct punctuation and my grammar's pretty good (hey, sometimes I play around with it for style). I want to know someone enjoys this, so review! By the way, I love the ending on this **

"Hey Rosie, it's me," He whispers, holding her paper-thin hand in his own, "I told you I was coming back." He stares into her blue eyes; they are clouded and blank, devoid of emotion. He wants her to slap him, to scream 'what took you so long?', he wants her to care that the two only see one another for an hour every day. It doesn't surprise him when she doesn't move.

"Rose, love, do you remember me?" His question is soft; her eyes flicker before she slowly shakes her head. He exhales in disappointment, but he had anticipated this, just like he always does. He learned during their school years that he mustn't approach her with high expectations, first it was her absolute denial of his requests of dates, then her refusal to marry him, next her steadfast position against having a child, now this. Even when her body was just a shell of what it had once been, she still retained her stubbornness. He vows never to forget how stubborn she is, how determined to make him squirm she always was, a trait that he has both loved and hated over the years.

"Okay Rose, that's okay." He reassures her, in all of his consideration he had neglected to notice the growing concern in her milky eyes.

"Are you one of those nice men from the cafeteria?" She questions, she sounds lost and confused. He shakes his head just as she had previously done, slowly.

The woman before him almost brings tears to his eyes, he can see a flicker of the old Rose inside of her but she is so empty, so hollow.

_"Come on, Scorp! Hurry up! Geeze, how much slower could you go?" She teased, the wind playing with her hair, her fingers trailing through blades of grass the color of a green crayon. That day had been perfection; the two had spent it chasing each other around a patch of overgrown grass by the lake. She had ran and taunted him until he sneaked up behind her and tackled her to the soft ground, making sure to roll so she landed on top of him, unharmed. She planted a small kiss on his lips, her hair smelled like fruit and her skin tasted delicious under his demanding kisses. In the dying sunlight, her hair glowed like embers and her skin looked radiant. She was so beautiful, and she laughed a high lilting laugh when he told her so._

_ "I think you're pretty hot too," She said with a smile, before crushing her mouth to his, extracting yet another groan from his bruised lips. _

_ "I love you." He didn't whisper the words, they weren't soft and fragile, he said it like a fact. The wind created ripples across the lake's glassy surface, it reflected two young lovers tangled up in their embrace, holding tight and praying the other never let go._

She drops his hand. Her touch feels satiny instead of velvety like it did before. Before, what a strange notion. Before meant anytime up until the day he started losing the woman he loved, forever. Before was a happy time full of laughter and jokes and beautiful smiles. Before was a time when she would greet him. He isn't angry at her, she can't help that she is slowly losing him, one piece at a time, but he is undeniably sad.

He still loves her, but it isn't the same anymore, she isn't the carefree girl who he could chase around fields.

"_Smile, Scorp. You are not allowed to look that sad, you'll make me sad. If you don't smile, I swear, I'll cry." She pouted at him over dramatically, raising her eyebrows at his sullen mood, "what's wrong?" When her attempts to cure his depression didn't work, she tried a more direct approach. With this question she lost the lightness in her voice, she was obviously genuinely worried about him._

_ "I don't want you to get hurt because of me. I don't want you to be punished or disliked among your family members because you happen to, out of all the eligible boys at Hogwarts, chose me. I don't want to be responsible for that." She smiled a sad and knowing smile at him before standing up and curling herself into his lap._

_ "But, I love you. My family will accept that, they love me no matter what. It may take some time but they'll get over it." She looked up at him and looped an arm around his waist. Their lips touched briefly._

_ "Promise?" His eyes still held concern, but he tried to push that to the back of his mind and worry about other, more important, things instead._

_ "Promise."_

"Rose, has anyone else been in to see you this week?" He asks, curious if the entire clan of Weasleys had decided to come after all, they had missed the past couple of weeks and without her family, Rose is even more lost.

"I don't know," Her wavering voice makes the words sound like a question reflected right back at him, it was like when he would quiz her for their finals, if she didn't know an answer she'd mimic his question so that he'd be forced to tell her.

_"The Goblin Rebellion of 1045 took place in what mountain range?" The two of them were sitting in the Gryffindor common room, sharing one large overstuffed chair, her perched on his lap. _

_ "I don't know," she sighed, blowing strands of her fiery hair out of her face, "what mountain range did the Goblin Rebellion of 1045 take place on?"_

_ "Oh, Rosie-Posie, you're going to have to do better than that, I'm not going to give up that easily." He smiled at her while she scowled. His eyes skimmed the notes he held behind her back to confirm his answer. Suddenly, she spun around and attacked his sides with her fingers, tickling him until he squealed 'mercy, mercy' and submitted to her demands, which were usually the answer and a kiss. _

"You know, I don't think they've been in to see you this week. Do you want me to call them and have them come tomorrow?" He reflects on his recent conversations with the various Weasleys and Potters, no, they definitely have not been here in a while.

"That'd be nice," Her voice is bland; it doesn't shock him that she expresses no true desire to see her multitude of family members, as much as she loves them all.

"Rose, I'll come in tomorrow, okay? I have to go now." He can't stand seeing her like this, on days where she's this bad he has to cut his visit short. He knows it is weak but he cannot stand watching vivacious Rose submit to this all-consuming disease. Maybe, maybe tomorrow she'll actually remember his name.

_She rested her head on his muscled chest, silent to listen to his heart beats._

"_I love you," he whispered. She stroked his jaw with her long fingers._

"_You know I'll always love you."_

"_And you won't forget me over the summer?" The pair is panicked at the idea of an entire summer of separation, him in the isolation an only child faces, and her lost in a overwhelming crowd of red heads._

_She pressed her lips to his and whispered, "You know I'll never forget you."_


	6. Losing Him

**Hey! Look! A oneshot that doesn't involve death! It's still sad, just not boohoo sad, if you know what I mean (you probably don't but that's okay). I feel like this one took forever to write, I had a spot of writers block that is just now fading away (knock on wood).**

"It's just," she took a deep breath, trying to suffocate her nerves with oxygen, praying that nerves didn't, like fire, blaze when fed air, "I don't know how to do this. Any of this. I'm not use to being somebody's girlfriend, all my life I've tried to separate myself from my family, you know, be different from the crowd. I've worked so hard to give myself an identity, it's difficult to surrender it and just become part of somebody else. I know I'm not good at this, I know that sometimes I run away or don't answer your letters, but, but I'd really like it if you'd give me another chance to work this out." She paused, waiting for him to talk, when he didn't she just started to speak again, fully aware that she was rambling nonsense that would probably scare him off, "You see, Scorp, I really like you. I'm confused but I do know that you make me feel special, pretty, like a teenage girl. Did you know, when I think about you, I giggle?" He snorted, the first reaction she had heard from him in what had seemed like forever and was actually only a few days. His laugh fueled her to continue, "I've never met anyone else who makes me giggle. I guess I'm just asking you to put up with me, to teach me how to be in a relationship, because I really like you. If you don't want to get back together, that's okay, I guess. But I needed to try, to know that I did everything I could to get you back." She was being honest, something that both shocked and unnerved him

"You know what?" He said, his mouth forming a twisted, mutilated smile that made her stomach churn, it was a smile full of pain that had once hidden in the dark recesses of his mind but was now being brought to light, "no more second chances. I can't do this. Not again. Last time, last time you came to me in tears and told me you just needed time, I waited for you, I waited years for you. I don't know when you'll be 'ready' but I can't continue this. I can't have a girl who kisses me and confesses her love for me one day but ignores me the rest. I'm so tired of this."

"Scorp," She whispered, "no, no, no please don't do this, please don't leave me." Tears filled her eyes and began to overflow onto her cheeks. She looked like a child, innocent and vulnerable standing in the pouring rain with tracks of mascara running black rivers down her cheeks.

"I can't," his voice broke, "I can't do this anymore. I love you. I love you too much to be with you when you're being like this. I love you but you hurt me, so, for once I'm going to be selfish. I'm leaving now." He turned on his heel and walked, head bowed, back hunched into the night. His footsteps clapped a song of bitter loneliness against the cobblestone road.

"Scorpius!" She yelled, screaming with a hoarse, sob-worn voice into the inky blackness, "It wasn't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to take me back; you were supposed to love me. God I need you to love me." She fell to the ground in a pile of muddy clothing and anguished sobs. She stared at his retreating back, attempting to memorize it, to chronicle the entire night in her head so that she could at least hear his voice once more, see his face in her dreams. He heard her cries, and his heart broke.

"I do love you, Rose," He murmured, "but that isn't enough anymore."

The darkness concealed his sobs, making the droplets that fell from the heavens indistinguishable from the salty tears that ran down his face.

Her pain was much more public, she lay, screaming in a primitive agony, under the yellow tinged light from a streetlamp. She slept there, that cold and rainy night, clinging to the curb of the last place she spoke to the love of her life. She knew that she would probably see him one day; she knew that when she did, she'd beg for forgiveness all over again. She also knew it didn't matter.

**As a writer, my job is to write; as a reader, your job is to (wait for it!) review. Tricked you, you thought I was going to say 'read', didn't you? Well, you've already read this, I assume, so now review and tell me what you think.**


	7. Hating Him

**Uh, language. Yeah, this one has some swearing. Another break-up story, another one that doesn't involve one getting sick/dying and the other reflecting on their previous time together. Which kind do you prefer? **

"Tell me you love me. Just, goddamnit, just tell me you care. I don't know what to do if you don't care, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do if you don't care about me. I've spent years with you, years! And, you're just going to throw it all away, toss it out the goddamn window because it isn't enough. What more could it be? What do you want from me? I don't know what you want, what you need. I can't fix this unless you want to help me, I can't make it better. I wish, I wish I could slap a band-aid on it and call it healed but that's not going to work, we both know that, that won't fix the problem. I can't make you look at me the way you use to. I've tried, lord knows I've tried, I've worn those outfits, the low cut blouses and lacy knickers, I've whispered seductively in your ear, I've tried but you don't care anymore. Why? Why don't you love me?" She screamed, tears streaming down her pale face. Seeing her lose control was bizarre, generally during our heated fights she were the one shushing me, worried about the opinions of busybody neighbors. I tried to focus on her tone; the way the moonlight reflected off of her hair, giving her a saint-like glow, I tried not to listen to what she was saying because, because I knew it was all true. Over the years she had become less exciting, less dangerous, and I just wasn't as interested in her anymore.

"Rose," I said, trying to keep my tone even, trying to have the temporary sanity that would be enough for both of us, "Come on Rose, just let me expl-"

"Save it, I don't want to hear it. Not now, not ever. Either tell me you love me or get out. And, don't you fucking dare even think about lying." Her voice was sharp and cut me deeper than any knife ever could.

"Rose, you have to listen, just let-" I was pleading, trying to calm her down for just a little while so I could make her understand what I was feeling. I didn't want to lie and tell her I loved her, but I wanted her to know the truth, that way we could try to work it out.

"Don't you bloody tell me what I 'have to' do! You know what I really 'have to' do? I have to remember, to find myself, and you're not helping. I'm tired of listening to you, of trusting you. I believed everything you told me; I didn't question any of it. Maybe I'm naïve, did I use to be? It doesn't matter; nothing matters except for the fact that I'm so bloody tired of listening to you. I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear your 'But Rose's and you 'Let me explains' I want you to shut up and let me figure this all out because you aren't helping anything! Either tell me you love me, and bloody mean it because I can tell when you're lying, or I can show you the door." She was so cold now, so cold and serious and business-like, it was astounding how quickly she changed from fiery passion to icy hate, astounding and terrifying.

"Rose, just give me a minute. I loved you, I did but-" I felt like a fish out of water, what was I supposed to say? She'd know if I was lying, she'd kick me out for telling the truth.

"You loved me? You _loved_ me?" She was incredulous, emphasizing the regrettable past tense I had used, "Scorpius, I gave you years. I waited for you each and every night, every night. I didn't complain when you had to work late, I didn't complain when you didn't even come home. You know why? Because I trusted you, because I love you. Notice my past tense there, I still love you, I probably always will, but I will never trust you again. So, get out. Get out of this house or god forbid I will make you leave myself." She was crying but she didn't lift a finger to wipe away the tears. I think she did that on purpose, leave the tears cascading down her cheeks as a way of tattooing my guilt to my heart. Our last moments together, perhaps ever, and I spent them watching mascara bleed vile black blood down her pale cheeks. The same cheeks I kissed, the same cheeks I admired for their softness, the same cheeks on the same girl I loved, I watched them become covered in black.

"Rose," My desperate attempt to be heard out fell upon deaf ears.

"I hate you. I hate that I love you even after you did this to me. I hate that you are so goddamn blind that you didn't even notice me, sleeping here all alone, when you were off fucking your mistresses. I hate you. I love you. Now leave."

**How was that? Realistic at all? Nah, probably not, but it was fun to write. Seeing emails with your reviews in them make my day (seriously, I was almost hit by a car yesterday while reading a review on my phone, I'm okay though) so you should probably hit that little button and leave me a message. Come on! You'll make me smile **


	8. Leaving Him

**Well, here is one that I kind of like. Originally, it was very Meredith in Grey's Anatomy, you know, "Choose me, love me," (which I was tempted but didn't include), of course I changed it quite a bit but still, I give much love and credit to the writers of my favorite show. Also, I don't own the characters, just the situation and their personalities (which means, pretty much everything but their names and the singular reference to the Ministry). Also, I changed the name of the story, ideally to attract more readers, what do you think? Should I change it back to Fractured Love Stories Make More Sense?**

"Give me a reason why I shouldn't be in love with you right now." Her voice was soft and even, caressing him with its simplicity and its explicit honesty. He was frightened; nobody ever spoke to her like that, like they were baring their soul for him alone. It was like she was standing before him naked, no more pretenses hiding her motives. And, for a moment he was happy she loved him, he was selfishly happy and could not think of a reason for her to stop.

"Don't love me," he pleaded, "I like you too much to get you hurt. Don't love me, I'm trouble. I'm my own personal demolition crew that battles every relationship I've ever been in. I chew girlfriends up and spit them out and I like you too much to do that to you."

"So don't," She said, like it was the most obvious thing in the entire world, like he had a choice in the matter, "don't do that, I love you. What more do you need?" She was so simple, so naïve to even think that he had a choice in the matter. His eyes filled with tears, of sadness, of happiness, of guilt- he didn't even know anymore. He ached for her, his body literally ached for the feeling of her slender frame pressed up against him.

"Oh, Rose. Please, don't do this to me, don't make me hurt you." His voice was soft, begging. She began to cry. In a word, she looked pathetic. But, Rose had the kind of face that was luminous when she cried, she was pretty when she smiled too, but all the boys fell for her when she looked so lost.

"Scorpius," she whispered, "love me, it's easy. You don't have to hurt anymore." She gazed at him through her tear stained lashes, analyzing his face and cataloguing it for her expansive memory.

"Rose, stop it. You don't understand."

"Don't you, Scorpius Malfoy, tell me what I don't understand. I understand I love you, I understand you love me, there is nothing more for me to need to understand!" She couldn't help it, his words angered him. He always treated her like this when she suggested a formal relationship, he treated her like she was a child that just needed a little reassurance, that just needed to be told, "the grown ups will take care it all, don't you worry." But she was tired of being shoved aside, of having her decisions made for her without her consent.

"Rose, just let it be, let it be. It's not that difficult! Rose, I like you, I like you a lot, can't you just accept that but not make any rash confessions that could end up just hurting both of us?"

"How dare you. How dare you tell me off like I am a misbehaving toddler. I'm standing here, I just declared me love for you, I was more open than I've ever been in my whole life. How dare you have the nerve to scold me." Something in her snapped at that moment, his condescending words released a flood of emotions she had blocked off for years. She could live with his denial of their mutual attraction, though she had been hoping for his acceptance, but for him to say that he liked her but wouldn't act on it? She couldn't understand how even he could be so cruel.

"See, Rose, I'm already hurting you. Can't we just forget this?" His voice was louder than he intended, ringing with a smug tone that made her insides boil.

"You know what, Scorpius, you have a choice to make," she spit, "and you can chose me, or you can wait for some perfect girl that may never show up but you have to make that choice. You can't expect me to wait while you figure out just how much you like, not love, but like, me. So, Scorpius, I'm going to walk away, I'm going to leave and if you stop me, if you can pull your shit together and stop me before I am gone, I'll take that to mean you love me too. If you don't stop me, that'll be your choice. I hate putting you on the spot, but you have to choose because your waiting around is killing me slowly." She studied him for a moment, then turned on her heel and took careful steps away from the spot where he stood. She methodically counted her steps, expecting a voice to cry, "No! Wait!" but none did. The quiet alley that had held their passionate exchange was blanketed by an oppressive silence. She waited until the count of 'fifty', after which she was sure that he wasn't near by, to cry.

She waited for him, waited days, weeks, months. She counted each night, just begging him to come for her. She waited and waited, until, one day, she just didn't feel like waiting anymore. She got a job at the Ministry –the same place that he worked but she tried to convince herself that that wasn't why she took the position- and she was, she was happy.

"Rose," his voice whispered one night as she walked down that same alley on her way home, she shook her head, trying to clear her imagination of such vivid hallucinations, "Rose, I think, I think that I'm a disaster, that I'm a work in progress, that I'm a fix-er up-er, but, if you'll still take me, I think I may love you." His voice was silky smooth and entirely too realistic to be a product of her over-active imagination, she turned and faced him. Dark shadows haunted his stormy eyes.

"No. You can't do this to me. I can't do this to me. I waited, I waited for you and you didn't stop me. It's too late; you made your choice when you let me walk out of your life." She was eerily calm and detached from her words, for the second time he watched her turn and retreat into the shadows. She was gone.

**So, comment **


	9. Falling for Him

**Please, loyal fanfiction readers don't kill me. I was playing around with a different style, more stream of consciousness, it's short, I know, but I like it. So, here's to falling in love, instead of falling out of it.**

We're teetering on this edge of a cliff and, and I'm terrified of falling off. I don't know what falling feels like; I don't know how much the final impact would hurt. I'm terrified, I want to take a step back, to turn and run, but everything inside of me has taken up the silent chant of 'jump, jump, jump' and I don't know how to resist. I don't know if I want to.

You do this to me; you give me this tingling that runs from my scalp down my spine to my toes. You frighten me with your easy charm and your eyes which twinkle with mischief. You know it too, I see how you watch me, how you smile when I blush, you know you affect me but you keep on doing it.

The way I see it, we're at a crossroads right now, if I lean in, if you smile just a little, we could fall down, and who know what would happen then; but, if I get up, walk away, or if your eyes go cold and hostile, everything will go back to normal. Whatever normal was.

I feel like this entire situation is made from crystal, it is so multi-faceted, it sparkles so much, it is so very beautiful; but, if we are careless, it could shatter in an instant. So, so I'm tentative, I don't want to press to hard for fear of ruining everything, but at the same time, I'm standing on one side of an open door and you are on the other, all I have to do is walk and we'll be together.

Do I want to be with you? I feel like I need you, like a bit of me is missing and you can replace it. You are like the joker in a deck of cards, you don't look exactly like the original missing piece, but you make a good imitation. Part of me yearns for you, while the other part screams logic, telling me that this is a bad idea, that I'll get hurt again. I think I'm finally recovering from last time, last time I took a wrong turn at the crossroads we're facing now, and I really don't want to feel that pain again.

You aren't safe. You aren't the best pick for security or stability, but, but I think you'd love me passionately. I've always wanted that, for someone to just be there, be there to talk, to kiss, and to love. What if you are that someone? That thought scares me. Even scarier, though, what if you're not? I don't want to make the wrong choice, I don't want to love you because it feels 'right' right now, I want to love you for being you. I don't want to use you because I know how much it hurts to be used. Do I know you well enough to fall in love with you?

Some part of me, the lusty, hormone driven teenage part of me, wants to hold you tight and hear you moan my name in ecstasy. The realistic, grounded part of me banishes that rebellious figment of my imagination to a dark corner to brood. I thought this choice was testing my sanity; it appears I have none left to test.

But, we are here, here now, and the sun is setting and you are leaning, leaning, leaning, and, and I'm falling and praying that you'll catch me. I'm falling forward until our lips are touching, and, we are both flying.

**Ack! It's really short. Too short? You should answer me in a review.**


	10. Finding Him

**I've been working on this for a few days, I really like the idea. That being said, it's okay, I don't love this but obviously I like it enough to publish it here.**

She stumbled into the room, eyes downcast, with black pools of mascara under her vivid eyes. Her thin frame shook, rising up and down with her sobs. She didn't hide her pain, or mask it, she just allowed herself to let it all out. Rose was the type of girl who boxed up her emotions, but it was becoming too hard to handle and his words, those damn words, were echoing in her head.

She was alone, isolated in this deserted room, just a girl and her pain. It was so simple; there were none of the nasty complications other people's meddling words and hidden selfish desires. She was grateful for that, she appreciated that this one moment she needed to herself was granted. It was so infrequent that she was given time to herself, but it was even more infrequent that she broke down, she acknowledged the blessing that was the two infrequencies coinciding.

She continued crying, her mews of pain growing softer with each passing moment. As her tears subsided, her panic increased. She was worried about being found, about how she would look, about how weak she would seem. Rose Weasley was anything but weak, but in she was breaking down, falling brick by brick, until her fleeting sanity had scattered. She always did this, worried, and she wondered what would happen if she just left the room like this, hair all a mess and mascara streaking down her face, she wondered if anyone would notice.

She sat there for a while, just drinking in the heavenly quiet that she rarely heard. The peace was so fragile, but so beautiful. With a couple of sniffs, she began to look around the mysterious room she had wandered into. She had never been there before; the walls were unadorned with the exception of the stand-alone mirror which patiently waited for her on the far side of the room.

She crossed towards it, she had read so much about Hogwarts' history, she was surprised that the school still had another shock in store for her. The mirror was just a mirror; it reflected the rest of the room just as expected until she stood in front of it.

The reflected girl was a mess, her fiery hair was in a loose know affixed precariously to the top of her head, she had large brown eyes that looked hollow with grief, and, her tie was crooked. Rose didn't watch the girl too long, she knew that face all too well, she thought as she self-consciously touched her own. Rose thought she was pretty, nothing special, but she knew she looked nice, all of this was just confirmed by the mirror.

What Rose found interesting (disturbing?) was the image of a boy standing behind her reflection. He was tall, much taller than her petite frame, and had messy platinum hair and a pale but glowing face. Standing behind the reflected image of her, she saw Scorpius Malfoy, as she watched; he wrapped his arm around her slender waist and pulled her into his chest while briefly pressing his lips to her head. That is when she realized that the mirror was magicked; obviously Scorpius wasn't standing behind her, comforting her.

She rubbed her hand on a phantom weight that put a light pressure on her side, the spot where the reflected (the imagined, she decided to call him) Scorpius was holding. She wasn't the least bit shocked when she felt no real flesh connecting with her palm.

She stepped forward until she was nose to nose with the imagined Rose, "Now you listen to me," she murmured, "you aren't allowed to show me things like that. I'm already crying, don't show me him when I can never have him look at me that way in real life." She knew she sounded insane lecturing the mirror, but she couldn't help it, she needed to get her point in.

"What do you see?" A voice, his voice, spoke softly from behind her. She wheeled around and saw him, he looked just like the mirror portrayed him, and he was even standing in just the right spot, a chill went up her spine. She would have been astounded with the accuracy of the mirror if he put his arm around her waist, but she knew he wouldn't, and so he didn't.

"I see myself alone," she lied, she wondered if that was the right answer, if she could just pretend that she saw the mirror as a mirror.

"Wow," he whispered, "are you really that lonely in your family?" She was confused, what did he mean by that?

"It's just a mirror, right?" She asked him, wondering if he knew more about it than she did.

"It shows you the one thing you want most in the entire world. If you see yourself alone, you must want some space, a place all to yourself. I'd assume that if that was the case, you aren't, or don't want to be, close to your family."

"Well," her breathy tone matched his, "what do you see?" He looked thoughtfully at the mirror for a little while.

"I see myself doing this," he bent in and pressed his lips to hers. Her arms snaked around his neck and he rested his hands on her waist. She had waited so long for the feeling of his body next to hers, when they kissed her insides soared. After he broke away from her he pulled her into a tight embrace. "You're crying," he whispered, "what's wrong?" She felt tears burning salty streaks into her cheeks the moment he said it.

"Happy tears," she mumbled, "I saw you." He wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed the top of her fiery red hair.

**Maybe I'm an idealist, but it's very princess-y/Disney to have the whole wishes coming true thing. This is more like my regular style when I'm not playing around, it relies on emotions and vivid descriptions and rarely uses names. **


	11. Right for Him

**By now you know (or at least I really hope you do) that I love playing around with different writing styles. Well, this one is pretty cool, I think. I love using those vivid descriptions that paint the picture in your mind but this is so emotional. Yeah, it's predictable, and yeah, it doesn't have a super unique plot, but I love the writing. It's rambling and contradicting and all in present tense (something I do infrequently) but it's refreshing and real. I changed the name of the story back, I like Fractured Fairy Tales Make More Sense, its long but I think it's more fitting to their love, plus it leaves more room for happy endings. Please, review this writing style specifically; I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with it. I don't own Rose and Scorpius, though I do write them and their plots.**

She tells him she hates him, she says she never wants to see him again and he just doesn't understand her or love her the way she loves him. She says to him that it's over, that she can't be with him when he doesn't reciprocate her feelings. She tells him that he only likes her for her body and she can't stand that anymore.

He tells her that she doesn't understand, that he loves her for being her except when she's being like this. He tells her he values her brain and her touch and her (more perfect than flying or eating chocolate cake or early morning walks) kisses. But she is being stubborn and she isn't listening and it's driving him insane.

She screams at him, berating him for everything wrong he has ever done. She yells for that time that he didn't compliment her hair when she spent an hour on it, the time he missed their date (he was in the hospital wing with the flu, but still). She yells and screams and makes sure he knows, makes sure everybody knows, that he is a horrible boyfriend.

He gets angry, tells her that she should just shut up because she isn't really that great herself. He tells her that he is always there but she just expects too much and he can't accomplish everything she wants. He tells her that she makes him miserable, that he just doesn't want to spend time with her because he's always worried about setting her off, about making her scream like she is now.

She yells back that he has a bloody horrid temper that turns his (undeniably incredibly amazingly attractive) face the shade of a ripe tomato. She tells him that he isn't half as hot as he thinks he is and that she only felt pity for him and his arrogance.

The two shout at each other until their relationship lies in a dirty pile of torn up rags at their feet. She screams until her voice is sore and her eyes begin to burn with tears. When she starts crying, he moves forward and tenderly puts his arms around her.

They really shouldn't be together, he thinks, she's so needy and insecure (and amazingly sexy) and she just isn't right for him. But she's in his arms and he's rocking her back and forth with murmurs of 'it's okay' and 'I'm here' and he can't help but look in those clear green eyes and think about how beautiful she is.

She really hates him. She hates that he's with her right now, calming her and helping her function, she hates that he's always there when she needs him most, he comes with his arrogant smile and his pride in tow (and his charming laugh). She wishes that he'd just go away but he's there and he's holding her and he's picking up the pieces of her heart which lies in shreds on the floor.

They are so different, fire and ice or oil and water, but, like a magpie seeking jewels, his eye keeps returning to her. She loves him for not hating her and he loves her for telling him when she's upset. Really, they hate each other but right now he's wiping away her tears and she's leaning on him for support and all either one can think about is how much they love the other.

**By the way, this little series was my 'I have way too much time (and inspiration) on my hands' distraction. Well, it's officially eaten away all of the time I'm supposed to be spending on The Significance of Smoke. So much so, in fact, that I haven't even covered why smoke is significant. So, please review if you liked or didn't like the story and tell me what you think about this new style.**


	12. Seeing Him

**I like this one. It's not so short (1,000ish words, not bad) and I think it's rather good. I suppose you'll have to read it and tell me what **_**you**_** think.**

It was late but she didn't notice the chiming of the distant clock. She hunched over herself, the firelight flickering and drawing the creepy shadows from the boxes they retreat to during the daylight hours. She was curled into a red armchair, it was fraying a little around the edges and some of its velvet had worn off to reveal faded pink patches, all in all, it was lacking the dignity, the grandeur it had obviously once had. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun, pieces falling into her face causing her to stop periodically and tuck them behind her ears.

He knew that he'd regret staying up this late tomorrow, but it was, in a word, intoxicating, to watch her work. He couldn't pull his eyes away, not even for a moment, because they kept seeking her. He knew it was wrong, wrong to stare at her, wrong to watch her, but he couldn't help it. She was an addiction, so he watched.

She spent these stolen hours writing, just her and her notebook accompanied by the light of the dancing fire. Sometimes the moon peeked from behind the grey clouds but she took no notice of the bath of light that pooled around her. She cherished the night, a time for her to take a few minutes, a few hours and just breathe, just breathe in oxygen and breathe out words on to the page.

He, too, loved the darkness; it brought forth a girl he had never before seen. Sure- he had noticed Rose, it was difficult not to notice Rose, but he had never seen her so unguarded. The warm light from the dying flames danced around her body, caressing her slender form. He'd sit on the windowsill and silently watch her eyes droop and her hand fall limply from its position hovering on the paper.

It was so hard to escape, she always felt surrounded and boxed into a small area that was to be 'her'. Everybody assumed she was intelligent, because of her mother, and brave, because of her father, but nobody gave her a chance to just be who she wanted to be. She didn't even give herself a chance to let go of all of her responsibilities and duties. It felt like she was always holding her breath, like she was tense all of the time. When she wrote, when she slipped away from life for a little while and just wrote, it was like taking a big gulp of the fresh air and learning, slowly but she was learning, how to really live.

He had seen her, seen her during the day. She always looked preoccupied, her brow furrowed and her lips forming a small pout. At night she was so different, she relaxed and once or twice he swore he saw her smile. It was so difficult, during the daylight hours he'd receive suspicious stares from just glancing at her, but at night nobody witnessed the way his eyes feasted upon her delicate cheekbones or the freckles that brushed the bridge of her nose.

By the light of the dancing fire she wrote about everything. She wrote tales of love and bravery as well as stories that were heart-breakingly realistic about tragedy and loss and humiliation. In her stories there were princes who came for the maiden and maidens who sometimes didn't want the prince. Sometimes, on days that she felt especially low, she just wrote about herself. She told herself that nobody would ever have to know about the tears that splattered on to her diary, smudging her words, softening them with running ink.

He had seen her cry. He had seen her curl into that big red chair and pull out the ever-present notebook and cry. And it made his chest feel heavy and tight but he didn't know what he was supposed to do. He didn't really know how to voice what he felt as he watched the silvery teardrops track shiny paths down her face, but he knew that it felt bad. That it was wrong. That he'd do almost anything to make her smile again.

She never saw him, sometimes she imagined the shadows shifting just a little as if someone was perched up by the window, but she never actually saw him watching her. It was only after she was asleep, her notebook sliding off of her lap and her head resting against the worn away velvet, that he crept down closer. Every night he'd pick her notebook off of the floor, closing it and setting it softly on the table next to the armrest of the chair, and then he'd unfold the blanket that was tucked under the chair and lay it over her sleeping figure. With shaky hands, he'd scribble on a piece of paper that she'd tossed away during her conscious hours. He wrote the same thing every night, his messy scrawl would read _I love you_ and he'd fold it up until it was itty-bitty and tuck it into the chair, dangerously close to her leg. There were hundreds of those notes; they lined most of the crevices of the chair.

Every morning she'd wake up, put the notebook into her book bag, re-fold the blanket and shove it under the chair, and wonder who tucked her in it every night. Sometimes she could feel the ghost of a presence, the phantom brush of flesh against her skin as if someone had touched her very lightly the night before. Every morning she'd shove the blanket under the chair, until, one morning, a note fluttered out.

**WOAH. Was that the beginning of a happy ending? What, I didn't kill/maim/emotionally destroy someone today? That's impressive. This is really how I write when I'm not thinking about stylistic write, I rarely use names and dialog, I just try to paint a picture. What do you think? Was it good?**


	13. Tired of Him

**Some of this is true. It's frustrating, actually, because all of the bad parts are true. Here's yet another writing style, one that I love because it can really make you feel. Plus, this is a long one (3 pages, yay!).**

It's a kind of leaping in your throat, the way your breath hitches just a little bit when you see him. It's the special smile that only shines for him (the one you keep locked away until he arrives). And maybe it's a horrible-no good-awful idea to be falling for him but you just can't help the fact that you really think its love (because what else could it be?) and you really hope that he feels that way too.

Sometimes you could swear that you feel his eyes on you and sometimes you think that his jokes may be subtly telling you 'I love you' but you can never really be sure so you wait. You hate to wait, you're very impatient and very childish but you'll do it for him. You wish that he'd just stop with the jokes that make your eyes twinkle and the comments that make you giggle a little and just shut up, just shut up for a minute and kiss you.

He seems to be so perfect, so right for you but instead he asks you about what he can do to make her happy and it's driving you insane (but you could never tell him). You calmly teach him how to satisfy her, telling him all of the things you wish he'd do to you. You know it's a little more than wrong, but sometimes you consider feeding him lies (but then again you'd hate to have her break his heart).

And maybe he doesn't love you, or maybe he just doesn't know it, but you can't look at anyone else when he's around. People notice, too, people see the way you admire his hair when the sun catches it just right and those platinum strands glitter in the afternoon light, they see when you can't speak (or breathe) for a minute because his grey eyes have your heart racing, they see and they talk but he never seems to hear.

You really, really more than anything wish that he'd notice you. You carry around a four-leaf clover and want him wish-on-six-shooting-stars bad but he doesn't reciprocate. Any normal person would be tired by now, would just be done with this doomed romance, but you're not (and who said anything about you being normal?).

When you touch him your palm tingles and your heart quickens and your breathing catches and the two of you pause, just stop and glance at each other, then he slowly lets go (is that regret in his eyes?). There is electricity between you and it's driving you insane. And sometimes he says things (your hair looks really pretty down) and you remember them and they just repeat in your mind every minute of every day (did he mean you were pretty or that your hair was?).

You dream about him, about his arms wrapped securely around your waist, but then you see him with her and the dream seems like it is a complete fantasy. Sometimes you think about telling him, about confessing it all, but you don't (what if he doesn't feel the same way?).

Your romance is one on the pages, one of ink and paper. The two of you write to each other, confiding so much in just a few words. He has a wicked sense of humor, one that has you inappropriately laughing during class. He tells you about his goals, his dreams. You know more about him than anyone else but he doesn't even know your reason for existing (him).

And it's so frustrating, frustrating to live this half-existence. You've broken hearts in efforts to get over him but it just isn't working (does this mean that he's something worth waiting for?). You can't help but wonder if he's mirroring your actions, dating her to forget you (but why does he want to get over you?). You are so head-over heels because he is so (blue sky on a sunny day when all the clouds melt away and all there is is an endless view) perfect.

You and he have endless jokes and pages of notes and chemistry that draws you together (but what is the holdup?). Sometimes there is a small pause, and you realize your faces are awfully close and your holding your breath in and it feels like your about to explode and he leans down, but nothing ever happens.

You've waited for years for him to notice you, waited for him to look at you and hold you close. You've waited and waited and you are getting just a little bit tired of it. You don't know if you can take another letter from him asking for advice on how to ask her out (do it on the stairwell in the late afternoon, take her somewhere quiet and isolated but not completely alone. Don't stutter and whatever you do just remember that she likes you too). You're kind of thinking that it may be time, may be time at last to move on. You don't know how.

You don't know if life without him is possible but you think it may be time to try it out because you really can't keep living like this. The pain feels good but you're tired of him peeling off the scab of pain and re-starting the emotional bleeding. So maybe, maybe it's time to let go but he's been in your life so long you don't know how to. Your fingers are cramped from holding so tight to his last note, even though you know exactly what it says you can't figure out how to command your hand to release it.

This waiting game isn't satisfying either of you, and you think it's time to give him a choice. You don't want him to run but you can't keep wishing on all of the shooting stars that cross your way. You're so exhausted of clutching that four-leaf clover, so tired of making wishes year after year on the candles you blow out.

You whisper 'I love you's into the night but he doesn't hear and the moon doesn't respond. With a small sigh, you pull up the tattered remains of your heart and decide to look for someone else. But he's standing in the moonlight, looking like he's a statue (one more beautiful than any carved by the Greeks) and he says that he's been waiting for you. You want to tell him you've been waiting too; waiting for years for him to open up his eyes but you can't find your voice because he asks you how he can kiss her. He admits that the first date went well and now he doesn't know what to do.

You are so done with giving advice, so tired of the secret fantasies that haunt you every night. And you find yourself crying. He doesn't know what's wrong but you can't find the words to tell him that it's all his fault and so you are running away. You are fast but he's faster and he's hugging you and whispering that it'll all be okay but it isn't and it won't because he's making it so hard to get away from him and move on.

But he's there and his arms are encircling you and you can't really remember why you decided that it would be a good idea to forget him because he's so warm and he's there right now holding you.

You want to confess, to make your plea but you can't because as nice as it his to have him hugging you close, you know (somewhere deep in your mind, but you know it) that he'd rather be with her. So you leave.

You wish that you could leave without looking back but that isn't possible because the moon is illuminating his body, emphasizing how well built it is and teasing his tousled hair until it glows. So you glance at him, seeing the beautiful way he shimmers through your haze of tears.

But he calm-as-can-be walks up next to you and pulls you close again and you are so tired of fighting. He smells nice, spicy and like your father's pipe. You wish that he wasn't holding you, it's just one more weapon your mind will use later when trying to picture him perfectly. But he isn't leaving and he isn't letting you go, either. He whispers 'I'm sorry's into your hair and you can't help but remember how honest he always is (does this mean that he's really sorry for keeping you waiting).

You know he's nervous, you know he doesn't know how to handle girls very well, but he slips his palm into your and leans in to kiss you. And, it's kind of perfect and you forget why you wanted to forget him and you really, really think that he may actually love you too (but you're still not sure).

**Please, I'm begging you, review this. I can see how many people read my stories and I'm actually disappointed to see so few reviews, if you hate it, tell me! If you absolutely love it because it's** **(blue sky on a sunny day when all the clouds melt away and all there is is an endless view) perfect, tell me!** **There really is no reason for every single person who sees this not to review, none. Please, please tell me what you think.**


	14. Sneaking with Him

**A big thank you to my reviewers! I had been receiving one review a week (about) until a few days ago. I'm so happy somebody likes this (and they used nice words to describe it, it made me feel all warm and fuzzy). I'm going to Japan and will not have anything for you until mid-August. I'm sorry. I'll try to write while I'm there, but my best inspiration comes while typing, I mainly use pen and paper for poetry. On that note, this has an awful, horrible, no good, very bad poem in it. PLEASE ignore it. Please. It's 2:30 AM right now and I hate rhyming but I think that's how Rose would write. Just ignore it. It was a pathetic attempt at foreshadowing (which only works if you've actually figured out the plot to your story before writing.).**

It is two in the morning and Rose is still awake. She's sitting in a chair by the fire in the Gryffindor common room, writing in a small blue notebook, pouring her heart into the spiral bound pages. And maybe it's not the best writing, and maybe it doesn't really mean anything anyway, but she loves it. She lives for the feeling of a quill on parchment; the notebook is just how she makes that delight portable.

_I'm sitting in the shade of the gnarled tree_

_ Wondering whatever is to become of me_

_ And I can't help these dreams_

_ But nothing's really what it seems_

_ And now the world is tumbling_

_ But I can't hear your mumbling_

_ And I am spinning around_

_ I don't think myself lost but I hope to be found_

_ And all I can hear_

_ Is all I can fear_

_ And the ground looks to be shaking_

_ And this panic is over-taking _

She looks at her words, penned in a navy ink, tattooed into the paper. What did they mean? She thinks it is about confusion, about not being able to know what is in the future.

It's late and she has class in the morning. Everything inside of her is screaming 'sleep' but her eyes can't close and her brain won't quit. With an unhappy sigh, she pulls herself out of the velvet clutches of the chair, and decides to journey down to the kitchens for some warm milk.

It's so late, so, so late but he can't rest, he has homework and tests. He was already practically disowned for being in Ravenclaw, now he has to prove that there was a reason for that, that he has brains. At this rate, though, his homework isn't going to be finished in time for classes and he'll receive, he thinks with a shudder, an 'A'.

He's worried, so worried that he won't do well. Something in him tells him that he's special, that he's intelligent (and maybe even kind of cute) but he can't comprehend that. Intelligence would be getting effortless 'E's, cute would be having girls falling for you at every turn. He isn't treated to either.

He knows from past experience that he really can't stay up any later or he'll be an Inferi in the morning. With a wistful look, he begins packing up all of his schoolwork, ashamed that he wasn't able to finish his essay for transfiguration that is due next week. While putting all of his materials away, he accidently knocks his ink over. He curses briefly, and then mutters the necessary spell-work to clean up the mess.

After siphoning off the ink with his wand, he finishes organizing his many books and stows them in his trunk, tip toeing to avoid waking his house-mates. It's late but his eyes are still wide open, he determines a nice glass of warm milk may aid him in sleep. Quietly leaving his dorm, he walks down to the kitchen to ask the house-elves for some.

She shrugs the invisibility cloak over her slim shoulders. Her cousins had inherited the cloak and all of the Potters and Weasleys left it under a specific floorboard in the Gryffindor common room, that way whoever needed it could use it whenever they wanted to. She knows it is a luxury, to insure that she won't be caught, and she couldn't be more grateful. She recalls the count for the house points; Gryffindor was solidly in last place right now due to Albus' antics. Albus was (like his uncles) a prankster; George had even begun taking Albus' advice for new products. Albus' latest stunt lost the house of red and gold one hundred points when he 'accidently' set fire to a Slytherin's robes.

She traipses down the hallway, completely comfortable in the heavy, oppressive silence. She often took night-time jaunts, she knew where Peeves liked to be at night (third floor) and how to avoid him (be quiet when on those sections of the stairs), and she had yet to be caught.

She walks right up to the painting of a bowl of fruit and tickled the pear. With oiled hinges, the door was silent as it swings open.

He set out down the corridors, continuously checking over his shoulder in fear. Ravenclaw was a few points ahead of Hufflepuff currently, but he really didn't want to be the one to lose his house points. It would take a big mistake for Ravenclaw to slip under Gryffindor, that boy who had set the Slytherin's robes on fire probably lost the red and gold supporters the cup.

As he walked past the painting of the knights on the third floor, he heard the dreaded cackle.

"Is an ickle-wickle student out of bedsies this late at night? Oooh, they're gonna get in trouble." Peeves taunts. Scorpius felt cold with fear, someone was bound to bear witness to Peeves' shrieks. He is done for, he thinks, before he sees a white figure glide over to Peeves and whisper something quietly.

"Yes your Baronness, I'm sorry, I'll just leave now." Peeves says hastily before departing from the corridor. Scorpius is shocked but relieved as the poltergeist turns his pale back and departs.

He locates the painting of a bowl of fruit, stroking the pear in order to gain access to the kitchen. The painting opens to reveal a mass of scurrying house elves.

A tall, thin, pale boy walks in the painting, stooping a little in order to fit. She watches with a small smile.

"Thought you were never going to show up," She grins. He smiles at her in return.

"Well, I couldn't keep you waiting." He takes long strides over to where she is perched on a stool and kisses her. She intertwines their fingers.

"I'm glad you deemed me worthy of your presence," She murmurs into his lips. He laughs throatily before taking a seat on one of the few normal sized chairs in the kitchen. She looks at him and then leaves her stool to nestle into his lap, bringing with her two mugs of warm milk.

"I missed you," He whispers into her hair. She responds with a small kiss and a light giggle.

"Boy," She bites her lip, her eyes bright, "my father would flip if he knew about us."

"Likewise," Scorpius agrees, "it's a really good thing I thought up this arrangement. You wanted to be all Gryffindor and just let everyone know, but this, this is exciting and neither of us get killed by our parents." She nods her head, eyes lazily drifting shut in the comfort of his arms. He just sits and strokes her hair until the clock strikes four o' clock and he decides that he really should sleep. With an unhappy sigh, he shakes her awake and pulls her into one final embrace before they both stumble out of the kitchen. He fastens the cloak around her neck and she fades into the night.


	15. Playing for Him

**Well, here's a sad one.**

**I don't own Harry Potter; I wish I did, though. I do, however, own this little story, and its little plot **

Scorpius sits in the room so white it burns his eyes. He sits as he feels a trail of moist warm tears run down his pale cheeks. He sits as he waits, waits for her. On that bed, on that huge bed with beeping machines and lines forming mountains and valleys, on that bed that was so white, she lies. He had never seen her like this, so delicate and vulnerable, it kills him. On that huge bed he can see the way her collar bone juts out too much, how every bone in her wrist is fully visible, how her cheeks are sunken in and her hair has started falling out. He sits by her bed and watches the girl he loves drowning in all of her mistakes and insecurities. To his credit, he had tried to help, he really had. He, along with Albus and James, who corresponded by owl, had intervened. It didn't make a difference, and that, too, just kills him.

So bad, so bad he wants to scoop her into his arms and run out of this sterile white, white, white building and off to someplace she could be happier. But he can't, he won't. Because, as much as he hates this white room, she needs to be here, she needs to get better. He looks down at the shrunken imitation of the girl he loves and thinks, thinks about how she use to be. It wasn't her looks he missed, though the teenage boy in him did want them back, it was her energy, her spirit. He thinks about her, he remembers.

_"Hey there gorgeous, you gonna eat that?" He smiled as her gave her a tight hug from behind; she wordlessly passed it up to him._

_ "Don't get crumbs in my hair," She teased, he mumbled back a reply but his mouth was too full to have his words understood. After he chewed and swallowed, he planted a light kiss on her red ringlets._

_ "You going to eat anything else?" He asked her, he didn't let her see, but there was a touch of worry in his grey eyes._

_ "Why? You want to steal it off the table, as opposed to out of my mouth?" She joked lightly, brushing some of the crumbs from the toast he had eaten out of her hair._

_ "Nah, I just want to make sure that you've eaten enough. You haven't really been eating a lot lately and I'm getting a bit worried." His tone was a sharp contrast to her, he was being serious and she knew it._

_ "That may be because anytime I have anything half way to my mouth, my boyfriend sweeps down and eats it." She quipped, her tone still light and playful._

_ "You know what I mean," He says quietly, and the worry slips into his eyes but he doesn't hide it. She reaches out and touches his face._

_ "Scorp," She whispers, "Don't worry, okay? It's fine, I'm fine." It is clear from the worry still in his eyes, he doesn't believe her. Hesitantly, he puts his arms around her, she cuddles into them. For a moment he is lost in her beauty, how unobtainable she seemed, how he is so glad, so, so glad she chose him._

_ "Oi! You there, get a room! Or a closet at least," Albus walks up to them smiling, his morning greeting the same words exactly as when he sees the pair doing anything together, the same words he said when he caught them kissing the day before, and the same words Scorpius expects him to say when he kisses Rose on their wedding day. He feels a surge of affection towards Albus, the boy didn't even bat an eyelash when Scorpius announced that he was now dating Rose. _

_ "Eat." Albus commands. At this time, Rose was thin, but not anywhere near as small as she ended up getting._

_ "I already did," she sighs as she stands up and steps over the bench, both boys know that that was a blatant lie, but neither say anything. Later, much later, Scorpius realized that they should have made a fuss when she stopped eating at first, maybe that would have saved her from all the problems later._

"Rosie Posie," he quietly sings, holding her hand in his own. She looks so different from how she looked before, before she was curvy with just enough weight to be perfectly filled out. Before all of this, she was by no means fat, but now, now she was so waif like it broke his heart.

"Don't call me that," Her voice is weak, as is her usually radiant smile. Her beauty was marred not only by her lack of any fat to cushion her bones, not just by the fact she looked like a skeleton and no longer had breasts or a waist, but by the tube that was giving her sustenance.

"What are you going to do about it?" He jokes quietly. It was true; there was nothing she could do to him. Her wand had been confiscated for a little while so she could do no more damage to herself, and she was much too weak to even sit up off of the bed, as a whole, she couldn't do anything on her own. She couldn't even eat, well, he supposed, she just wouldn't eat, that is why the tube was there.

"Scorp," Her voice is small, and he can hear the quiver in it, "Do you still love me?" He looks down on the girl laid out on this massive white bed in this tiny white room, the girl with a tube down her throat and machines beeping from wires connected to arms so thin it looks like he could accidentally snap them in two, he looks at the girl who he had kissed long ago, long before he had to worry about breaking her, he looks at the girl who was causing him outright agony.

"Of course," He answers, truthfully, "of course Rosie. I could never stop loving you." She looks up at him, eyes shining.

"Am I ugly?" Her voice is small. He can tell that she won't believe his answer if he says no, but if he says yes she'll begin again the process of hurting herself.

"You never were, and you never will be. But, Rosie, please get better. I love you forever and always but it's not the same as it was before all of this. Please, Rose, get better." His tone is pleading, she catches a glimpse of how much pain he feels, but he doesn't see her own.

"I can't," Tears begin to pour down her face, gracing her cheeks with rivers of sparkling wetness, "I can't get better. I've tried. Every time I look in a mirror, there's this voice that tells me I'm fat. And I've tried everything but I can't ignore it."

"You aren't fat," his voice breaks, "you never were. You were, are, so perfect, and I love you. I always have. But, why? Why did you do this? You did it to yourself; you hurt yourself, why?"

"I can control my weight, I can't control all of the stares I get for being the daughter of two of the Golden Trio, I can't control my huge family, but I can control this." She bites her lip, "And, and they're finally talking about me. Paying attention to me. There's always press about mom and dad, and at family reunions there are just so many of us, I feel lost. Don't you get it, Scorp? I'm lost! Nobody wants to find me because nobody knows I'm missing. I hate that. I hate that I am slowly dying and just now everyone realizes. I thought," Her voice cracks, "I thought it would be caught sooner. I think I would have gotten better if it was caught sooner. But, I can't eat anymore, I see food and I imagine being fat again. I'm still not skinny, I don't think I will ever be, but I can try. That's what I'm doing, Scorp, I'm trying. I'm trying to be just as pretty as all of those other girls who fall all over you. I'm trying to be worthy of you." By the end, they are both sobbing. She realizes that she's never seen him cry before, but here he is, crying like a small child, and she realizes he isn't ashamed.

"I love you," He repeats. He knows he could say it a million times and that wouldn't force any food into her mouth. He could scream it and she still wouldn't eat. He knows, no matter what he does he will be forced to sit and watch from a front row seat as the girl he loves withers away right before his eyes. And nothing he could ever say would make a damned bit of difference. And, he knows, she's not just dying now, she was dying long ago, when nobody gave her attention, when nobody cared. She was dying then just as much as she is dying now. She is dying, was dying, and even if she recovers from this, will always be dying, because nobody gave a damn. So, he sits and watches her cheeks sink in and her skin turn grey before, at last, her heart can't keep struggling to beat. Because, she thought nobody gave a damn. He sat, he watched. She was wrong.

**I was on the eating disorder awareness council in my school and I know how much eating disorders can hurt, not just the person suffering, but everyone all around. There is something to be said for noticing other people, if you don't, someone could keep hurting themselves and nothing would stop them. Please, take just a moment every day to make sure those around you are safe and healthy. You may just save a life.**


	16. Divorcing Him

**I really am leaving tomorrow, so I really won't be publishing for a while but I really wanted to finish this up before going. I listened to Leavin' n a Jet Plane from the Whiffenpoof album while writing the beginning of this. I really can't listen to music while writing otherwise the lyrics end up mysteriously in the piece, so I did have to turn the music off.**

Everything was boxed up, his area so empty it looks like he had never even lived there. The sunlight falls on to the wooden floor, making the room seem unnecessarily spacious. You cry at the sight. The tears stream down your face as you begin to understand how permanent this choice is. Before, before it had all been words but now you know just how lonesome the house is without him.

You don't know how long you stand in that doorway, sobs silently shaking your body as the world around you crashed to a screeching halt. He is gone. Well, not quite, but he is as good as. And you really don't know what to do without him.

He isn't going to come back, he isn't. That thought sends you crying more, this time the sobs are audible and heart-wrenching. You don't hide your emotions, you don't need to, you are alone in the house. So you sob, you sob because nobody is comforting you, you sob because there is nobody there and he is gone.

For years you two had been together, inseparable, but now, now his belongings are packed away and you are crying in your bedroom and you can't help but wonder where it all went wrong. And you want him to come back, to just give you another chance, but you knew it would hurt so, so bad if he did. But, it seems criminal not to at least say good bye.

You don't want to be that pathetic woman who crawls back to her man for forgiveness, but you just miss him so much. Everything is so different without him there, his clothing is no longer neatly pressed into drawers, his toothbrush doesn't lie next to yours, his lack of presence sucks the life out of the house. And you miss him. God knows you miss him. He hasn't been gone long, but you can't stand the thought that he isn't ever going to come back.

You can't believe how stupid you were to kick him out. It had seemed brilliant then, sure, but now it just seems like a horrible plan that left you so damn lonely. You two fought, oh did you fight, but it was always with passion. There is no passion in emptiness.

So you just curl into a ball and let it be. Let the loneliness and emptiness and the true impact of your mistake overtake you. You just curl up and cry. Because, because what else is there to do without him?

It hurts, it hurts it hurts it hurts. It hurts so bad all you can think about is the sheer amount of pain there is inside of you. You didn't know it was possible to feel like your heart had actually been ripped out of your chest. You touch your breast, curious to feel it still whole.

You lie there, maybe for hours, just allowing pain and regret to wash in equal waves over your still form. You lie there until you hear the quiet jingle of keys in the lock and the click of the door opening. He is there for the last time ever. You know it was just to pick up all of his possessions, but he is there. He is home. And everything feels a little better.

He walks into the room and sees you, still stretched pathetically across the hardwood floor.

"Oh Rose," he murmurs. You don't want to cry anymore, not in front of him, but you can't help it, your eyes brim over. "Rosie," he whispers into the room. And you can't help but think that the way the sun is hitting him makes him look like a statue. You can't help but admire him, his lean build, his hair so blond it looks white. You can't help but wonder why any of this was happening.

"I miss you," you know you sound pathetic but all you can think about is how much you want his arms around you. How much you want him to know that you forgive him, that you can't live without him. But he doesn't move and you wonder if he doesn't love you anymore.

"I'm going now; I didn't think you would be home. I'll come back later when you're gone, if you'd like," he says, nodding towards the boxes.

"Please don't leave," you cry, "please, just stay." And you know it's a bad idea, you know that sometimes he's trouble but you just can't stay away from him.

"Oh Rose," he repeats and you wonder what that even means.

"Please," you ask again, not knowing what you will do if he says no, if he leaves.

"Oh Rose," he says, yet again, "and then what? Then I leave? Don't think I haven't been crying too, don't think this isn't hard for me too. Just, let's just stop all of this. I'll come for the bags later; I'd appreciate it if you left the house while I finish moving them out." And you keep crying because his words are so true and they hurt so badly.

"Just stay," you tell him, gazing at him though tear stained lashes, "just stay here. You don't need to leave." You hope that's good enough because you don't know what to do if it's not.

"So," he asks, a mutilated smile carving an ugly expression on to his handsome face, "so does this mean you want me back?" You consider his words; won't the two of you just have the same problems all over again? What exactly were those problems? You can't seem to remember what really went wrong.

"I need you," you whisper. And it hurts to say it out loud but it is the truth and you can't take it back.

"Rose, don't do this, don't do this to me. Just let me leave, it's what you wanted, remember?" He backs away from the corner that you fill with equal amounts of your slim body, pain, and self loathing.

"I'm sorry," you tell him, crying again.

Maybe he's not going to come back, maybe he's just going to leave you in a heap in the corner of your empty room, crying over your broken heart. But, but maybe he's going to stay, maybe he will realize, like you did, that this was all your fault and you need to figure some stuff out but it's easier to understand your thoughts when he is there. You know he still loves you, but maybe he loves you too much to stay. You really hope not.

And he's shuffling forward, his feet leading his heart until he's standing next to you. Years of your companionship has taught him to comfort you when you cry. He's bending down and lifting your chin and kissing your rose-bud lips gently. And then he's holding you in his arms and whispering words of love into your hair. And maybe he loves you just enough, maybe he loves you enough to stay.

**Let's say this is a happy one. Because I think it is, there is a happy ending, right?**


	17. Waiting for Him

**It's 2:37 in the morning right now. I promised myself that I was done writing but then I though of this and I couldn't get it out of my head. In a little more then 24 hours I'll be on the plane to Japan, but right now I'm just sitting here crying over fictional characters. **

You don't know how it's possible. You don't. You can't really understand because he was always just there, and now, now he isn't going to be. And you know what could happen, you know about all the bad people in the world and all of the flag-covered coffins that are bared home by soldiers dressed with mournful expressions, you know about it all. You're scared. You are so scared that this may be it but you can't think it is because that will make you cry.

You hate that letter, that goddamn letter, which told him to leave. You hate it because it stole him from you. And you know you're not alone, that you're not the only grieving woman, crying over a man that hasn't died yet, but you still feel so lonely. You feel lonely because it's better than feeling empty.

The two of you could hide, you could escape, but he is so goddamn loyal and won't leave and it's tearing you to pieces. You love that about him, that he wants to stand up and fight for his country but you just think that maybe somebody else should go and he should stay home, home with you. But that wouldn't be your Scorpius; he wouldn't be the man you love if he ran away, so instead you get to watch him leave.

Every second you see him you imagine his body unearthly still, pale and cold. You can't see him, can't hold him, without imagining his dead body lying in a wooden coffin because he's now a marked man. You want him to stay, you want to stretch this time into infinity, delaying his departure for as long as you live, but this isn't really living because you can't help but imagine him dying.

Even if he comes back, even if he survives, he'll be different when he comes home. He is so gentle, he doesn't even swat at annoying bugs buzzing around him, but he'll have killed. You have heard stories about men that lose themselves in their terrifying memories, will that be him? You don't want him to dance an awkward, unfamiliar dance after coming back because he's changed too much to stay with you. You don't want him dead, but you don't want him to be changed, either.

But the day arrives when he has to leave, as much as you try to stop it. You steal a kiss, or two, or three and then you smile and tell him to be strong, to be brave and you promise that, above all else, you will wait for him. He tells you he loves you and even pulls out a little velvet box with a little gold ring with a little sparkling diamond which he slips on to your finger.

"Just to remind you," he says. Of course you say yes, but wonder if he'll change his mind when he gets back. You pray not. And you try not to cry, you really try, as he drives away.

He's gone for so long; you count every day with a red slash through the calendar. Circled in bright green ink is a date, March fifteenth, the day he is due home. Every night you worry and pray and sleep the long nights away without him next to you. Sometimes, when you aren't feeling brave, you can't keep it together and you cry over the love of your life. You are so happy, so buoyant with joy to see the date creep closer and closer. And soon you pray a little less because he's so close, so close to coming home. He sailed, uninjured, through the first months, it seems like an easy feat to survive the last few weeks.

You write to him, one letter a day, and stamp them with your kisses and mail them off. You write about normal activities, your day, the woman you met at the supermarket, you want him to feel, above all else, like he is still part of your life. You don't write pages about how much you miss him, even though you could, because you don't want him to focus on you. You want him to fight, do his job, stay safe, and come home. But you write, just in case he forgets about you.

It seems like decades, but it's finally March tenth and you are getting antsy with anticipation. You wonder what he's going to be like when he gets home. You wonder if he'll still want to marry you, you hope he doesn't find you boring now that he's had an exciting slice of life. You clean the house constantly; you want it to be perfect for when he arrives.

It's March thirteenth and a black limo pulls up to your driveway. Two men get out, suited in navy blue. They ring your doorbell and when you answer they offer their condolences. They say that he died painlessly, that it was quick. They say that he talked about you constantly and that he loved you very much. They say that they are sorry but you don't hear because he is gone and the world is crashing down and you've forgotten how to even breathe.

Before he left, you didn't know how you'd survive while he was away, but now, now you know he's never coming back and it's killing you because you miss him so much. You run into your perfectly clean house, the house you spent hours organizing in preparation for his arrival, and you throw the lamps at the walls, shattering the glass into millions of shards that cut at your feet and cause you to leave gruesome footprints all over the perfectly clean white carpet.

You watch numbly, to consumed by the pain to feel anymore, as soldiers bare his mahogany coffin, outfitted with a flag. They wear mournful expressions and the trumpet sounds but you can't hear because it feels like you are underwater. You watch it get lowered into the ground and you almost throw yourself in after it, after him. You don't know what life is without him and you don't really want to try to find out.

You live because you don't know how to die. You live because it hurts but he would have wanted it and you really don't want to displease him. You live because he can't, even though you want more than anything else to join him. People tell you you're brave, and that they are there for you but they don't understand, they couldn't understand. They didn't wait for months; they didn't count every day until two before their beloved was scheduled to arrive. They didn't understand because it is impossible to even comprehend the pain without living it.

Over time the shock dies down, those who aren't constantly reminded begin to forget about him. His is a tragic tale but its importance slowly fades away. But the diamond on your finger doesn't, it glitters your promise, a promise you keep. You wear that ring until the day that Death's fingers snatch away your breath. And you never love anyone else, you just wait for him.

**A reviewer asked me if I cry when I write, the answer? Yup. That's why I write at night (that and that's the only time I get a little peace), my dad would flip if he caught me sitting at the computer bawling my eyes out. A huge shout out to the wonderful reviewers that I've been getting recently, I love all you guys! **


	18. Saved by Him

"**Is she JKR?" Scorpius asked Rose doubtfully.**

"**I don't think so," Rose responded, "JKR would probably be less of a nutcase." Scorpius nodded in agreement.**

**There you have it. I'm not anybody exciting and I certainly don't own these characters. Except one. But he's an idiot. There is a lot of language in this one as well as some violence (yippee!). Please, read this only if you know it wouldn't upset you. Thank you **

They were the kind of couple that was always together. Always. Her small hand would be clenched in his, as he'd walk forward she'd trot in order to keep the same pace as his long, easy strides. Because, because they were in love, even if none of her family members really liked him. Yes, Rose Weasley and Henry Brown were in love.

But you didn't really care, sure you knew of them, everyone did, but it didn't really matter to you. You weren't close to Henry, though you had played him in Quidditch, and you had never spoken more than a few words during Potions to Rose. You had a few friends, not many and you weren't that close, but you did have a few. At school, at school you were nobody. You didn't live up to your father's reputation but you didn't really do anything drastic to prove yourself different, you just went along, the quiet Ravenclaw, and did your school work, drew, and played Quidditch.

You loved the days you spent in silent serenity on your little stone next to the lake. In the summer your hidden retreat was cooled by a breeze off the lake and in the winter the falling snow provided inspiration for your drawings. You had books and books filled with charcoal lines illustrating everything you came across. You lived and breathed through the paper that housed your images and the words you devoured and characters you imagined in books.

It was raining that day. The grey clouds of drizzle quickly soaked you but you were too absorbed in your sketch to really care. The drawing was not your usual style, it wasn't the quick, hurried lines of a person moving or a bird flying, it was a slow careful picture of the lake kissed by the harsh wind.

And maybe it's because you were so completely in your own world, and maybe it's because the black of your robes blended into the dreary day, but she didn't see you leaning against the gnarled tree, perched on the mossy rock. The sound of the dripping rain camouflaged her sobs until you chanced a peek up at your subject and instead found a huddled mass blocking your view. You sat still for a moment, wondering when the person sitting in front of you was going to move.

She was out of breath, panting with exhaustion but alert with adrenaline. When she heard something behind her rustle, she whipped her head around and spotted you. She looked comically like a deer in headlights, startled with eyes wide and mouth forming a dainty 'O'. Down her cheeks ran rivers of dark mascara and her eyes were swollen, one turning a brilliant shade of green.

"I'll leave," you offered, she looked more in need of the peaceful spot than you.

"No, no," she insisted, "I was just going."

But she looked so pitiful, so pathetic, something in you sparked with sorrow and rage. Yes, she was just a girl that had sat two seats in front and one to the right of you in Potions, yes you hadn't really spoken to her much before, but she looked like she needed someone to talk to, someone who would listen to her.

"Stay. If you'd like, I mean," she smiled gratefully before taking a seat on the puddled ground.

"Thanks," she whispered, coloring a little.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" You asked.

"I fell," she mumbled.

"Is that really what happened?" You asked. She shook her head slightly before reclining against the tree.

You were silent for a while, and she didn't speak either. In time you completed your illustration of the lake, howling and fierce in the storm. Next to you, she had closed her eyes and looked peaceful. You didn't even stop to think, your hand just began to move erratically across the newly turned page, staining it with the lines of her fiery hair.

"Henry and I," Rose finally said, "Henry and I have been dating for the past year. It's our anniversary." You nodded to show that you were listening. "He, well, he loves me," she said hurriedly, pressing the point as if it was vital that you understood that simple fact, "he does. But, but it was raining and I told him I'd pack the umbrella but I-" her voice faltered, "I forgot. I deserved it. I did. I am stupid and unable to do anything for myself and, and, and he's helping me. He's helping me become less stupid. That's what he's doing, he's helping me because, because he loves me." She paused for a moment, biting her lip, "he does love me." But her last statement sounded like a question.

Your drawing was coming along very nicely, possibly the best you had ever done. It showed the delicate combination of fear and self-loathing on her face, it showed the honesty in her eyes and the defensive way she had turned her shoulders out. It showed, you realized, pain. It was the picture of agony in the most horrible way.

Maybe you should have said something comforting, or maybe something to make her snap out of it and realize the truth, but you didn't speak up because the words were burdening her and her heart was heavy. Maybe you should have said something, but you didn't and she appreciated it.

"I'm lucky to have him, anyway," Rose told you, "I'm ugly and stupid and he is so kind for loving me, so wonderful for caring about me enough to help me. And he doesn't usually do this, but I deserved it. How else would I learn? What idiot forgets an umbrella in a rainstorm?" But her words were hollow and empty and her defense of him sounded rehearsed.

"You're looking at one," you smiled slightly, gesturing to the heavens that were pouring down. In truth, you hadn't brought an umbrella because you never found the rain bothersome.

"It's not that bad, anyway," she continued, "if he didn't teach me I'd probably do something really stupid and end up a lot worse. He's helping me because he loves me. He loves me. I know he does," she pushed off the damp ground, "I have to go, I need to apologize for running off, he was just helping. I need to go." But your hand had grabbed her wrist, pulling her gently back, "please, I have to go."

"And what'll be the punishment for running off?" You asked, "you are hurt, scared and hurt and you shouldn't go back. You can't go back."

"I shouldn't have left. I need to go. Let me go, I have to tell him I'm sorry for ruining his- I mean our anniversary."

"Hey," you let go of her arm, "let me show you something before you leave, okay? Then you can go back," you weren't really going to let her return to him, you didn't want her to be hurt worse, but you knew that pulling her arm was no better than punching her face.

So you showed her the picture. You had never let anyone else your sketches, you didn't think that they were that good, but you passed it into her pale hands. She stared at it for a while, wordlessly taking in the black lines. She touched her swollen eye tentatively, as if wondering if the injury was as bad as I had portrayed it.

"It's me," she breathed, "it's," but she didn't finish her sentence because there was nothing more to say. It was beautiful, but so was she, even if she didn't think so. It was heart-breaking, but so was her story. It was exactly how you saw her even if it wasn't how she saw herself.

She lowered her head and began to cry. Really cry, not just a few tears escaping her hazel eyes and coating her dark lashes. It felt right; it felt perfectly right to slowly move forward and take her in your arms, to shield her from the pain of everything. She could have pushed you away but instead she just pulled herself closer and cried some more. You rubbed her back and whispered soothing things but you couldn't tell her everything was going to be alright, because it wouldn't be as long as she was with him but you couldn't get her to get away from him. And maybe it was none of your business, and maybe you really shouldn't have gotten so attached to her, but she was so beautiful soaked in the downpour from the grey sky and she was so delicate nestled in your arms.

You could have stayed there with her for hours. You could have sat, back against the tree, until the rain stopped and a rainbow shined its message of hope across the newly blue sky. You could have, and would have sat until the last raindrops sparkled and glistened in her hair while the sun transformed the world into a damp paradise. But then you heard the noise of heavy footsteps coming from the direction of the castle.

"Where the fuck," a deep voice spat, "were you? I looked everywhere. And you, you get the fuck off my girlfriend, find your own, asswipe." Henry arrived. Rose pushed herself off of you, positioning her frail frame in front of you as if to shield you from Henry's anger.

"I'm sorry for running," she said meekly, "Scorpius was helping me."

"Helping?" Henry raged, his face turning the color of a tomato, "by helping are you meaning that he fucking molested my girlfriend? If so I'll go help Claire Johnson." He yelled, spit flying an angry rain down on her.

"I'm sorry," she cowered, "just don't bring Scorpius into this. Leave him alone," she stood up and tugged on his muscular arm, "come on, let's go." He roughly pushed her aside, his elbow knocking into her stomach.

"I'll deal with you later, bitch," he hissed at her before turning to face me. She tugged once again on his arm.

"Let's go," she told him. His hand whipped across her face so furiously that her head was yanked in the opposite direction and the forest rang with the sound of his palm meeting her cheek.

"I said," he grunted, "later."

The misty grey floating around you seemed to turn red with your anger. You were actually shocked to find that your blood wasn't boiling under your translucent skin.

"Get away from her," you told him, "get away right now."

"She's my fucking girlfriend. Mine. I can do whatever the fuck I want with her. When she's being such a fucking moron, she deserves to be taught a fucking lesson." He smiled in his rage. The red haze grew stronger.

"Get. The. Fuck. Away. From. Rose." You punctuated each word with a new degree of hatred.

"Or what?" He smirked, "you'll hurt me? You think you could take me? You think you have the balls to take me? You fucking idiot, you couldn't hurt a fly if you wanted to. Asswipe." As if to prove that he could do whatever he wanted, he clenched his meaty hand into a fist and pushed Rose into a near-by tree. Her head snapped back into the grey bark with a sickening 'crack'. She slid to the ground, unmoving. You wanted to rush towards her, but you knew that you couldn't because it'd leave him an opening to attack you as well.

"Stupify," you hissed, but he blocked it. His spell wasn't as effortless as yours.

"Asshole," he taunted before grunting, "wingardium leviosa," and levitating Rose's unconscious body.

"Put her down," you commanded, but he didn't listen.

"You want her?" He waved his wand wildly, sending her limp form crashing into a bush.

"Put her down," you repeated.

"Make me."

"Stupify." You tried again, pleased to see his body crumple. You took several quick steps to catch Rose before she hit the ground. When you heard the rustling behind you, you turned hurriedly, worried that Henry would be back up. Instead, it was Professor Longbottom. He gaped in horror at Rose in your arms and the crumpled body on the ground.

"Explain." He commanded.

And so you did. You told him everything. As you talked, the two of you walked towards the Hospital Wing where you lay Rose down, as gently as possible, in a stark white bed. You sat down next to her and didn't move until she stirred the next morning.

"Hey," her lips were clumsy with sleep.

"Hi," you smiled.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" She parroted your earlier words. You told her everything that happened from the time Henry pushed her to earlier that morning when you were told Henry had been only given two weeks detention. You and the Headmistress had argued about his sentencing but the school had no real precedent for the physical and verbal abuse Rose had suffered. After you finished speaking she looked scared.

"He'll hurt me," she said without masking her fear.

"I'll protect you," you told her. You thought she'd make stupid objections, telling you she deserved his blows, but she stayed silent.

And you did. You kept your arm around her waist and glared every time he passed you in the hall. Sometimes he'd call her names and once he tried to hit her, but you held her close and safe and he never touched her again.

When you held her hand, she intertwined your fingers in hers as if making sure you wouldn't let go. When you walked in the halls, you made sure she didn't have to rush to keep up. And when you told you wanted to marry her, she said yes.

**I'm still on vacation and I'm updating. I just couldn't stop getting ideas! I have a few more in the works; you should be seeing those soon. I also have a nice eight hour layover in Seattle (whoopee!) so I'll have plenty of time to write. Also, because I want to publish the best oneshots possible with as few run on sentences (I'm sorry, I know there are a lot) and typos and confusing plots as possible, would one of you like to read my drafts and edit them before I actually publish them? The only incentive I can think of would be that you get to read my stuff faster, if that convinces you at all. Pretty please? Just comment if you are willing. **

**Thank you for reading! Please review! **


	19. Swimming with Him

**I'm home dearies! Okay, I have the biggest thank you to give to all of you. Everyone. Really, last chapter I received so many reviews with so many kind words. I spend hours writing and you all make it worth it. A big kudos to the lovely people who read and reviewed this and then went on to read some of my other stories! Wow! So, in honor of everyone who asked for no fluff but a happy ending, I give you this.**

**P.S. It's short. I'm (like always) sorry.**

You're swim, swim, swimming in that ocean, trying not to let the waves dunk your head under. You aren't floating but you are not really one to stay dry on the sand, either. You don't know if that makes you daring, or just stupid. And you're worried about staying afloat and you're worried about washing up on shore and being back where you started but that doesn't seem to matter too much because the water is the oh-so-nice blue color that perfectly matches his eyes.

A storm is coming, you see its angry wrath beckoning in the horizon but it doesn't scare you yet because you are bobbing along quite nicely right now, thank you very much. And when you look around and find yourself alone you wonder where all of the other shipwrecked people are but the thought is fleeting because it takes too much concentration to just keep swim, swim, swimming and you have come much too far to drown now.

And sometimes they tell you that you're wrong, and sometimes they tell you to just let go but you can't and you won't and you're holding on with a white knuckled grip because he's the only thing that 's keeping you floating, whether they understand it or not. Tendons straining against skin and bone, you fight to keep a grip but they're pulling on you and the tide is pulling on him and the wind is whispering "just let go".

Because maybe it's too Romeo and Juliet, and maybe it's so unexpected it is cliché, but you kinda think you may be falling in love and you hope he is too. When it comes down to it, your legs are tired but could go on kicking indefinitely, and your arms are sore but they love just holding him tight. Because you could swim forever as long as someone is paddling next to you, and, maybe, as long as that someone is him.

Swimming is more fun when there is someone to splash you, and life is more fun when there's someone to love. And maybe you could afford to stop and rest a while because he would never let you drown.

There will be times you will slip a little, be pulled pack and down under the fierce waves, but his hand will guide you and his grip will hold you and his lungs will breathe life into your own so you will never lose yourself. And sometimes when you feel alone, you can look out on the wide open sea and remember that he loves you and remember that you love him too.

So keep swim, swim, swimming. Keep going because you are almost there. Keep going because it'll be worth it when you finally arrive. And keep going because you can't afford to quit. Keep on fighting the tides, the wind, and the people screaming denial from the rooftops. Keep fighting and fighting until you are tired of waging the war. Fight because he's worth it, and fight because he won't give up either. And when you are finally done fighting, when the waves have parted and the sun shines tolerance, give him a happy hug with happy tears and the happy words "I love you". And maybe, maybe when it's all said and done, you'll wash up on a different shore than the rocky beach you started on.

**I really want to thank a few people right now, they make me so happy. These are people who, I think, went above and beyond the standard 'Good job' review. **

**Foxtail-Padfoot, I'll give you some happy, see, I already started on it! I can hardly believe that you didn't just do one review for the series, you did several! Thank you so much for your reviews, they mean the world to me.**

**Umat6, WOW! Okay, where to begin. Not just one review on Fractured, and not just one story either. You've read so many of my pieces (all the HP ones I believe). You are willing to edit these chapters. And, you caught my little first/second person slip up in the last one. Awesome. (a quick note- sorry not to send this one to you, I got impatient) **

** I'm sorry I couldn't thank every single person who has ever reviewed my stuff. I don't have the time. So a huge thank you to everyone, whether you just read or you review regularly. Please know that I appreciate you all so much. I'm going to try to thank people individually with each chapter, so don't be discouraged if I didn't get to you this time.**


	20. Yelling at Him

**I changed the name again. Fractured Love Stories Make More Sense is WAY too much of a mouthful. So, I changed it and if you all hate it, I'll change it back. I like Petals on a Rose, though.**

"What's the deal with us?" He asked her, noticing her redden at his innocent question.

"We're friends," she told him, her voice containing a slight note of bitterness which he took notice of.

"Are you going to elaborate? You sound rather angry." His comment infuriated her, so much so that she couldn't stop the words from slipping out of her mouth and surrounding the pair, and she couldn't stop the tears from spilling over on to her cheeks and she couldn't stop how frustrated she felt because he would never understand.

"I loved you for four years. Four years, that's a really long time. But you didn't do anything. I waited for you to do something, anything, but you didn't. And I know you love me too because I wouldn't be so stupid as to love someone for four years without being sure that they felt the same way. I know you love me, I see the way you look at me and I know that other people notice too. But you never do anything, I wait and I wait and you just pass notes with me and ask me for advice on how to date Michelle and I'm so sick of it. I'm so tired of helping you with her because I just want you to finally get the courage to date me. Because I-" He cut her off, his deep voice overlapping hers until the words blended together, wrestling for power.

"How the hell was I supposed to know you loved me? I've loved you too, four years I've loved you, but you run off with Henry. I thought you wanted me, and I would have asked you but then you go and date him and it just makes me feel like I'm not good enough for you."

"What kind of excuse is that?" She raged, "you say you're not good enough, how do you think I feel when I see you with that bombshell? I can't even compare to her. I don't have anything over her, her grades are flawless, she is smarter, wittier, funnier, nicer. You say you aren't good enough for me but then you date her and she isn't a step down from me, she's an upgrade, the newest and latest and top of the line. I don't have anything on-"

"You think she's better than you? She's flat, a paper doll."

"She has bigger boobs than me. I suppose you like that too."

"There is nothing to her, no fire behind her eyes. You get excited. You get angry. You smile and look happy, instead of blank. That's why you are better. Because you think and feel and act impulsively and you live. She doesn't but you are always meeting people and trying new things and living. I'm just too boring for you."

"Boring?" She looked up at him, dazzled as always by the perfect blue of his eyes, "I'm boring. What life do I have? All I do is write and read and talk to you. I sit here and wait for a chance to come for me to prove myself but I can't because I don't know what I want to prove. I know I want to spend time with someone; I want to feel the love that I create for people who don't actually exist. I'm tired of writing and writing and not living. You think that she's flat? I'm more one dimensional than the words on this page."

"But you're not," he tilted up her lowered chin, "and I'm not the only one who sees that. If you were so interested in me, why did you date Henry?" She tried to smile but the grin felt flimsy and worn through and she wondered if he hated her for faking.

"To forget you." She confessed, "it didn't work at all." She felt a little flicker of something that could be happiness, her heart singing for joy because he did actually love her. He felt satisfied that he had finally unraveled the mystery behind her eyes.

"I've been really wanting you to say that for a while," his smile was genuine, but she just blushed redder because she had never actually expected any of this to happen.

He had never been that great at being with girls, he could talk to her for hours, sure, but he didn't know how to ask one out or kiss one. So he didn't. But she understood because she knew him. She knew he couldn't say all the things that she wished he would, but he meant them and that was good enough for her.

"You know," she remarked as they walked a little farther, "Michelle and Henry look awfully good together," and she laughed a real laugh because the two were already talking and flirting.

And maybe neither of them was perfect, but nobody really is, and maybe Rose didn't think she was special and Scorpius didn't think he was good enough but he thought she was beautiful and she thought he was extraordinary, and so they got along quite nicely. And after four years, nobody was surprised.

The question on everybody's lips was, "what took so long?" But neither of them had an answer.

**It's my story! Again! Except he's kinda horrible at confessing his love so that part hasn't (and most likely won't) happen. Yay. Which means I need to go find my 'Henry', but mine won't be abusive, I promise. And yes, he has a 'Michelle'.**


	21. Running away from Him

**Language warning.**

And so maybe it _didn't _matter

That his eyes were blueblue**blue**

And he l ov ed you so much

Because you were oh-so-tired of love

Because it hurt **so** fucking bad

But his lips

( delicious )

Were forming the words

And his eyes were _sincere_

And his arms welcomed you

And you m iss ed him

**A lot**

So you came b a ck

And that little voice in your head

Whispered your_ regrets_

And you tried not to listen

But the words wormed their way into your head

So you** left**

Again

You ran_ran_ran

But you aren't **really** escaping

Because in all those ugly boys

With their jeering grins and their _cruel_ laughs

You came to realize what you lost

What you **gave** up

Join a nunnery and w a sh away your sins

Rinse them down the drain like dirt from a hard day

But they will **follow** you

And they will _taunt_ you

And they will appear in your head as you try to sleep

Because you can't forget

H i m

Smile your _pretty_ smile

And stare blankly at the wall

Because **everyone** around you is growing up

Getting old

And finding **someone**

But you can't

Because you've lost _him_

And it fucking hurts

Every girl needs someone

To love her

And protect her

And **save her** from the dreams that haunt her

And you (as much as you _pretend_ not) are like every other girl

And you wish that you hadn't screwed it all up

But you di d

Run _away_ to your mind

And hope for a clearer tomorrow

But the rain isn't going to stop

Just because you stay inside

Coldcold_cold_ and stormy weather

Cause he's **stolen** all your sunshine

And you've misplaced your um b r ella

You _deserve_ to stand in the rain

And c r y

Because it **hurts**

But

You also deserve to see the clouds part

And maybe if you weren't so stu b bo rn

You'd apologize

You saw him looking like an

An g el

Standing at the end of a _rain_bow

And his white hair glistened

And his ocean eyes **sparkled**

And you really began to miss him

Except you had missed him all along

You just hadn't known

So you ran

But he ran aw a y

A fleeting vision left to** taunt **you

Into reliving your pain

Hold back your p ri de

And journey into the velvety night

Because words like '_sorry_'

Could make it all go away

You

You with the **wild** red curls

And the untamable heart

Walked up to the door with _worry_ in your

E y es

Because he didn't **have** to take you back

But you had to **try**

_Pass_ the threshold

And release the **pain**

Because it doesn't really matter anymore

You gave him your pleas

And now the ball's in **his court**

And it's taking so

L on g

He welcomed you back

With _arms_ wide

O pe n

And you were **surprised**

Because it was as easy as that

Tell _your _story between

Ki s ses

And share your **sorrow** while curled up next to him

Because he's the **good guy** he's _always_ been

And he'll listen to you

Because (to him) **you matter**

Even safe with him

You'll always be that girl

With a life full of regrets

Because it took you **too long** to stop

Ru n n ing

So _cherish_ your protector

Because you can't survive without

Him

**Props to Aiiimy, I totally stole this poetry style from her. And I love it, so, no regrets. A few people have commented saying that my writing is musical, like poetry except… not. Well, this is because (drum roll please) I write poetry. A lot. But not like this, usually. **

**This really has a plot, which is, honestly, shocking to me. But I like it. If you want to see more poetry, please tell me! I had a lot of fun writing this. If it sucked, please let me know because I'd hate to think (smugly) that it's kinda nice.**

**By the way, I wrote a new fic (big shocker) called Something Like Family, I'd be honored if somebody would read it because I rather like it.**


	22. Writing about Him

**This is (in my opinion) my most creative piece. That being said, you may think it a failure. It's a novelty, I won't do anything like this again but it was interesting to write.**

I can't write anymore. I can't. The words just won't come and force my fingers to fly over the keys creating a song of tapping and rapping as my pinky plays a steady beat and my thumb hums its simple rhythm. That's what writing is, you know, it's a song; sometimes it's complicated, sometimes it's plain, but it's always made of the delicate tapping of keys.

No matter what writing is, I have lately been finding myself unable to complete the daunting task of actually starting a piece. Sure I can write, my fingers can trace the words and draw them into existence but the words aren't musical and the descriptions are flat. I can think of scenes, of strolls in gardens of roses and nighttime jaunts on the beach, but I can't for the life of me get Rose and Scorpius to willingly submit themselves to my romantic ideas.

Rose, the darling who I write about, usually allows me to spin her a little story, a song of shyness and kissing in the rain, but she won't let me write her with tender love and quiet eyes. She's tired, I suppose, of being the damsel in distress.

Scorpius, oh quiet Scorpius, no longer cares enough about my inner peace to run after Rose yet again. Every time I write her to leave, he just won't follow. Instead of running after her, catching her and pulling her into a deep kiss with whispered apologies, he just sits down and watches her go.

I've given up so much for this, for my dream of writing something that so many people will read and enjoy. I've lost sunny days and nights of sleep and moments of peace just so I would be completely ready to tap the melody of Rose and Scorpius on the black keys of my laptop. I've made sacrifices but they just won't cooperate.

There's only so much threatening and pushing and begging one may do. I can't force Rose to be in need of rescue and I'm hopeless at convincing Scorpius to rescue her. It's driving me insane, the two are so stubborn. Rose's cousin Albus, the dear, comforts me with soothing words about it not really being my fault. He tells me that they are my characters, that I should be able to do what I want with them, that it isn't fair that they won't behave. But even with all of his wisdom, the pair in question refuses to listen.

This strike is really getting to me; I've sat at the computer for hours before storming off. I've devoured books hoping for some solution but Little Women offered no relief to my woe and Pride and Prejudice, though an amazing novel, did not give me any tips. I can picture Rose, hair of fire but overall a meek girl, and Scorpius, headstrong and bold, perfectly but when I try to write them down they run off the page.

It's as if the overture is starting and the curtain is opening and the two leads are off stage. Like head-strong divas, neither will listen to me even though I'm supposed to be directing the whole operation. One might say it's "much ado about nothing" but as long as they're misbehaving I will not be writing because what is Romeo and Juliet without the famous couple?

Come here dear Rose, and come brave Scorpius, once again begin to fight for your passion and love. Even if you do not wish the other as your mate, fight like actors on a stage for make believe romance. Other wise, I swear, I will go insane. Please, I'm begging you, just, for once, let me write.

**I don't have writers block right now, if you were wondering. So, expect a whole lot of stuff coming your way soon **


	23. Confessing to Him

**Another eating disorder one, y'all know the drill, no reading unless it won't be triggering or harmful.**

"Hey," he whispered, taking her chin with his thumb and index finger, tilting it until she was forced to look at him, "why are you doing this to yourself?" She bit back anger; he wasn't taking her seriously after she had just revealed the biggest secret of her existence.

"This?" she indicated with disgust towards her body, "why am I doing this? I'm doing it because I can't help it, because every time I see myself in a mirror I cringe in disgust. I'm doing it because, even though I know it's wrong, I want to feel beautiful for once. I though you'd understand, I thought you'd help. Scorp, it's a problem. I know it's a problem. I'm not denying it or refusing treatment, I just want you to care." She had thought he was different, thought he'd do something, anything, to make it better. She was tired of living life self-conscious and loathing every particle of food that she ate.

"No," he told her, "why are you hiding this from me? I can't wave my wand and make it better but I'm going to try to do everything else. Why didn't you trust me enough to tell me earlier?" She visibly relaxed, soothed by his commitment to her health.

_She had held it back years, years she had gone without telling and people hadn't ever suspected. She ate normally but retired to her room to complete endless work outs ripped from the pages of Muggle magazines. She'd work until she was shaking from effort and crying from pain and happiness, they blended together in the euphoria of sweat._

"I couldn't," her voice broke, her lips clumsy with sadness and relief, "I couldn't tell you. I tried, I did, but I thought you'd laugh."

"Why," his voice was disbelieving, "would I laugh about this? Rosie, I love you and you're hurting, it's a problem and I'm going to help you fix it. I am. I wish you had come sooner, you have to know, you have to believe, that I would never, ever laugh at you."

_It had started years ago when she and Destiny Brown had jokingly begun to exercise in the spring in preparation for bikini season. The pair would do hundreds of crunches and then sit down and gush over boys. In time, Destiny stopped coming over to Rose's house but Rose continued the strenuous work outs. Every night she'd do squats and crunches until, until she began gaining weight. Every day the number on the scale would be a little higher, nothing much but it grew and grew and she began to obsess over keeping it down. She could have never have been considered fat, but it was distressing to see her hips fill in and her thighs grow until she couldn't even recognize the alien body she inhabited. It was then, then when the numbers mattered so much that her small nightly routine began to evolve into something horrifying. It was small additions, a hundred more crunches before breakfast, lifting weights until her muscles felt like jelly, running until she couldn't breathe through the wheezing of her over worked lungs. It began to control her life, threatening her grades because she was unable to sleep unless all of her routine had been completed, and her social life because she couldn't have friends close enough to her that they discovered her secret._

"Thank you," she whispered to him, putting her thin arms around him, "I needed to hear that."

"We'll make it though," he mumbled into her hair, "together we'll get you better. I promise."

_She had done her research, she knew that her condition was a form of anorexia but she couldn't help it, she couldn't stop. She broke things off with him, shedding him as a way of casting off one of the final reminders of what she was missing due to her problem. And it worked. He left. But he was walking, a new girl friend in tow, by the lake for one of those romantic walks during twilight that he was always pressuring her to do when they were together, she never did go because she could have never finished a walk with him and her routine in one night, when he saw her collapse by the side of the trail during one of her long runs. He took her frail, broken body to the hospital wing where she confessed to him the secret that had plagued her for years. And he couldn't help it, he remembered why he loved her and she remembered what she was deprived of and he, then and there, promised to help her. She never told him, but the greatest help, the one thing that really made it possible to slowly stop the weightlifting, crunches, and runs in the dead of night was really the knowledge that someone cared enough to help her through it._

She wanted to thank him, thank him for finding her, for caring enough to take her to the hospital wing, for giving her hope, but she couldn't do anything but hold him tight and cry happy tears. He knew what she meant.

**It's another happy one, right? What do you all think about dabbling in some insanity? I'd like to do something that isn't a tragedy but isn't happy and hopeful (sorry!). Btdubbs, Destiny is one of my new favorite people, her mother is Lavender Brown. Destiny kept her mother's last name because her father left the family at a young age.**


	24. Found by Him

**Sorry to have so many updates today, I'm just taking all of these pre-written pieces off my laptop, I wrote them all during vacation.**

It's too sunny for November, a day too fair and nice for the usually bitter month. It's too sunny and beautiful for the tears to be cascading down her face. And she's hiding because she really wishes that someone would find her and she's crying because nobody is coming.

(Because who really cares about her?)

With such a big family, it's terribly easy to get lost in the crowd to become just another red-headed Weasley, just another freckled face. She is loved, oh she knows that she is loved, but it's so easy to feel alone.

(But no one is coming.)

So she spends the moment counting her breaths. Regulating the inhales and exhales that bring the necessary oxygen to her brain. She counts and breathes and wishes that someone was going to come and tell her that she was being silly, that they cared.

(But with each dull heartbeat her chest feels heavier with throbbing pain.)

And maybe it's only because she's desperate for company, or maybe it's because she finally heard footsteps, but when a pale, blond figure arrives at her feet, she pats the ground next to her. His hand brushes her thigh as he joins her.

(It feels like sparks trailing up her leg.)

It's just the two of them sitting in still silence for one, two, three breaths before he wordlessly brushes the fallen tears off of her freckled cheeks.

"What's wrong?" He asks but she can't come up with a way to explain why she feels so hollow. Maybe it's because he came at the right time, but she waits for her usual twinge of annoyance at his presence but none comes.

(This doesn't mean she likes him.)

She wants to say everything but the word won't come to her lips. She wants to tell him about feeling like one water molecule in an ocean when she is at home but she doubts he'd listen or care and she really doesn't want to hear his belittling remarks. Besides, he wouldn't understand. He couldn't understand. He had never felt so horribly alone.

(Would he?)

She thinks that he is probably too high and mighty for her pain, poor little pure-blood, rich Scorpius doesn't understand what it's like to feel lonely. But she can't tell him to fuck off because she really doesn't want to be alone again. Even if he is her company.

(She might actually like the feeling of his shoulder against hers.)

"Tell me," his grey eyes connect with her amber as he softly speaks.

"Nobody came," she whispered into the green grass. He nods her to continue and she'd really like to but there isn't too much more she can say.

(Is he really listening?)

And so it's silent for a few minutes, but she isn't crying anymore so, maybe, it's a comfortable silence.

"I've been alone, too," he mumbles, face turned to the broken grass, "but I've never expected anyone to come."

(She thinks he may understand.)

And her heart beats for him and her hand finds his in the over grown weeds and she feels oh so sorry for ever thinking that he had it perfect.

(Maybe he's just lonely.)

And it's pity and relief overflowing in her chest because as bad as she's felt he's felt worse, which means she's not alone but he's been unhappy longer, and that makes her heart hurt for him. And she has to say something because the silence is blaming her for pitying herself so much when her life wasn't really that bad but she can't think of any words to say.

(But he understands.)

And so she sits there, the little girl hidden in the big world, holding his hand with a smile blooming on her face because, she realizes, somebody did come.

"Thank you," she tells him because she doesn't how to tell him that she's sorry for hating him before.

(He's really not that bad.)

But he doesn't say anything for a few heartbeats and she worries that she said the wrong thing. But then he leans in and she falls forward and they kiss and she doesn't feel alone at all.

(Is this love?)

And it would have been perfect but then she hears footsteps.

"Rose, there you are! God, we've been looking all over. Are you and Scorpius, you know what, I'll just leave now."

Albus found her.

(And maybe this is her happily ever after.)

**Review if you want me to update before September!**


	25. Perfect to Him

She's the most gorgeous girl at school, all around her jaws drop and boys fall in piles at her dainty feet. Nobody can help but fall in love with her because she is just so happy; she has the disposition of sunshine, all smiles and no clouds. He can't be in her presence without staring with incredulous eyes at something, her toned body, her cascading hair, her love of living. So he makes it his goal to have her, to make her want him in the same throbbing way he wants her.

"You're crazy, mate," Riley tells him, "I mean, don't take this the wrong way, but, she's out of your league." And he knows she is but he can't accept defeat that easily.

"I know," Scorpius admits, "but look at her! She's beautiful. I need her. At least promise me you'll try to help," he asks his friend, who doesn't look so sure about Scorpius' mental health right now.

"Oh stop looking so pathetic," Riley chides, "of course I'll help, but don't blame me when she says no."

"I'm not going to come right out and ask her!" He looks shocked at even the suggestion, "I'm going to become her friend, you know, get her to trust me. Then I'll tell her."

He hears a sighed, "what ever you say, mate," before walking up to Rose. She smiles her sunny smile at him and he momentarily forgets what he was going to say.

"Do you need help with that?" He offers after regaining his breath. She looks at her trunk for a moment, and then glances at the rack where it needs to go.

"Would you? Every year I try to pack light but I can't ever seem to lift it up there." He leans down and, with a grunt, stows it next to the other trunks on the shelf.

"There you are," he tells her, aware that she is awfully close and her hair smells like lavender.

"Thank you," she breathes, seemingly captivated by his eyes. The two of them lean in, the difference in space almost imperceptible but really all the encouragement he needs.

"Oi! Rose! We're in this compartment," a voice yells out. The moment shatters and she turns away, blushing a delicate pink.

"Well," she casts her eyes down, awkwardly not meeting his gaze, "thanks again," before turning and walking into the compartment with all of her cousins.

"No problem," he tells the empty air, and then he walks back to Riley.

"So?" The other boy is surprisingly anxious to hear he results of the pair's interaction.

"She's even prettier up close," Scorpius sighs in response.

0000

September had passed, largely uneventfully, and now October was creeping close. Scorpius and Rose had spoken almost everyday, he always found reasons to run into her. She didn't see him as a friend, but they exchanged pleasantries with each brief conversation.

"Hey Scorpius," she smiles her ever-present grin, "you done with that essay for Transfiguration?" He nods, waiting until he swallows his buttered toast before speaking.

"I put the finishing touches on it last night," he is immensely proud of the piece of parchment, it is well written and answers all of the questions the students had been given. "Do you want me to edit yours?" He offers.

"Oh, yes please," she hands it to him as if she had been waiting for him say those exact words.

The sunlight streaming through the window was catching strands in her hair, illuminating the gold pieces hidden among the red. He takes the paper and reads it quickly, his eyes darting back and forth as he finishes the essay. It was extraordinarily good. So good, in fact, that he had only found a few minor punctuation issues, run on sentences and the like, scattered infrequently down the page.

"It's," he looks up at her, "it's really good. This, though, should be a semi-colon, and you need a comma here," he mumbles to himself, making the necessary changes. She gives him her best smile.

"Thank you," she says gratefully, "I really need to do well on this." But they both know she doesn't need to do well because she's already done so well in the class that she could pass it without doing any more home work for the year.

The two walk to Potions, her clutching her textbooks to her chest and laughing her tinkling laugh that makes his heart hurt a little.

0000

December ushers in snowy days and cold winds, she wraps herself up in a large scarf, Gryffindor colors of course, and he can't help but notice how her porcelain cheeks flush a delicate pink with the cold.

Everywhere he looks she's doing something, helping over-stressed first years, hanging Christmas decorations, tutoring third years, or visiting the groundskeeper. She's always moving, twirling around making the world a little more perfect with each act. She's everywhere doing everything and he can't keep up with how she can be so _good, _especially without failing out of her classes. Boys are always trailing her, trying to keep up with her charitable spirit. To each one that asks her out she says a polite no but suggests a better girl for them to focus on, more often than not the couples she match are inseparable for months.

"How do you do it?" He asks with wonder as she flits about, correcting three essays and instructing a younger student on the art of siphoning ink off of books.

"Oh, you know," she replies breezily, "I just do,"

Even with ink smudged on her face and her hair knotted into a bun, he thinks she's the most beautiful thing in the world.

0000

It was just the two of them, him and her, in the common room one abnormally warm night in February. She is sitting close to the fire, hunched over an essay that wasn't due for a week. He is in the corner of the room, preferring to watch the flames flickering over her face without her aware of his presence. She is captivating.

A tawny owl began tapping on the window, after a few seconds she walks over to the pane of glass and allows the bird entry. It drops a letter into her slender hands. She looks shocked as she reads it, muttering "no, no!" several times. When she is finished, she throws it to the ground and begins to cry.

Previously he could never imagine it, Rose Weasley crying? The happy, sunny girl in tears? But they are streaking down her face and she is sobbing. It is with none of her usual grace that she falls to the ground, pulling her knees close and rocking back and forth as if the simple action will keep her whole. He thinks he should say something, but he has no idea what words he should use. Instead, he steps forward and pulls her into his arms so that he is sitting on the marble floor with her on his lap. And he doesn't talk because he can't, the smell, the sight, the feel of her pressed so close to him makes him inappropriately exuberant but he tries to reject the joyful feeling because she is, obviously, miserable.

"They're gone," she mumbles into his shoulder, "all gone. No more. Like they went poof and disappeared," she dissolves into peals of hysteric laughter, "poof," she clenches her fist and then extends her fingers outwards like a magician, "did you know that? All gone, no more, never seeing them again, poof," she giggles madly, "poof."

It's heartbreaking for him to see her like this, so different from the girl he thought he loved, but even with her smile too wide and her eyes too bright and her laughter too high, she is beautiful. She quiets for a little while, just resting in his arms, occasionally dissolving in yet more laughter. He takes the silent moments to read the letter that had fluttered to the ground near his feet.

_Miss Rose Weasley,_

_ We regret to inform you that your parents were targeted by a group of supports of Voldemort. We assure you that their deaths were quite quick and painless and we offer our greatest condolences to your family. _

_-Alfred Worinsister_

His chest aches for her but he doesn't know how to fix it, and he is sure her pain is much worse. His helplessness is frustrating to him, she is falling to pieces and he is just watching her go. He should stop her; put her back together before she's gone for good, too. Poof. But her laughter is dying down and her eyes are drying.

"Are you okay?" He regrets the question the minute it's out of his mouth. Of course she's not okay, she's lost everything.

But she tucks her grieving expression in her pocket and gives him a small smile, it's not her usual grin but she looks, at the very least, mentally stable again.

"Yes," she nods, her eyes still a little watery and her smile a little forced.

"That's good," he says awkwardly, because what should one say when they discover that not only has their love's parents died, but that their lady love might also be losing it?

"Very much so," she tells him before pushing off the cold ground and walking, quite calmly, to her dormitory.

He only sits in the common room for several minutes before she reappears. Alone, she heads for the exit, without thinking, he follows.

She walks with her usual confidence before, once outside the castle, deteriorating into a jarring, stumbling motion. It is in this way that she walks towards the weeping willow, a tree that he had often observed her leaning against in the few moments she wasn't doing some charitable act. But she doesn't slide down the tree, pressing her back against it and having her isolated cry; instead she passes the mourning tree and continues her odd gait. She walks into the water, wading forward with an air of desperate melancholy. He watches as her knees disappear under the water.

"Stop!" He cries out to her, taking satisfaction in the wondrous gaze the red head bestows him for his skill in remaining hidden. "The squid!" She laughs him off like he is a small child, incapable of making his own decisions regarding priorities.

"You don't get it, do you?" She asks him, looking bemused by his ignorance, "you really don't get it."

"Tell me," he pleads, his chest tightens with something that feels like apprehension? Fear? Dread?

"You think you love me." She grants his wish by telling him the cause of her small elation.

"I do!" He swears.

"No, you really don't," she says it kindly, as if hurting his feelings would be the worst crime in the world. He can't help but revel in how gentle she is even as she is refusing him.

"But I do! I have for years; I've loved you for years. Rose, you are what I picture my future to be." Desperation and years worth of aching loneliness seep into his voice.

"No!" The shriek tears its ugly sound from her lips, "You love the idea of me. You love who you think I am, what you think I am. You think I'm perfect but I'm flawed. I'm so screwed up but you, just like everybody else, think that I'm an angel. I see how you look at me, those admiring stairs, I see it. You only love what you think I am, you don't love me, see?"

"Give me a chance," he pleads, "one chance. Let me prove to you that I love you just like you are; I know you aren't perfect, but you are to me. I know you have problems but I want you to let me help you solve them. I can be your everything, I know that losing your parents hurts but I want to make it better. I want to make you better. Just give me one chance."

"I can't," she sounds so small and weak, "I can't do that. I don't love you. Would you do me one favor, though?"

"Anything," he promises.

"Tell them all goodbye." Her request shocks him; he wondered where she might be going and who she wanted him to deliver the message to.

"Tell who?" He feels silly for needing to ask but he would hate to deliver her message to the wrong people.

"Everyone," she responds, "just make sure they know that I didn't mean, that I didn't want, that I chose it to be like this. Tell them; promise me you'll tell them."

"Of course I will," he blindly swears, unsure still of his assignment.

"Okay, good." She smiles at him, her face looking weary and worn down by the weight of her grief. "Now, it's time for me to take my leave."

"You can't leave, you can't leave me. Don't go!" Because he knows what she means when she pulls a small gun from the bag slung over her thin shoulder. He begs but she just stands in the still water, calmly facing him with the face of a goddess carved by skillful hands, an angel fallen from the heavens.

"I'm already gone," her tear streaked face gazes back at him, "poof." And with that small utterance, she raises the gun in her hand and pulls the trigger.

**I tried. I did, I did. I started this to be piece about her not being this perfect person, about her falling apart but him picking up the pieces and putting her back together but I couldn't do it. This was just too perfect an opportunity and it's been ages since I've written a tragedy. **

**Foxtail-Padfoot gets a huge thank you, so many reviews! I love it; keep 'em coming!**

**But, that's not fair, a few HUNDRED people read this, I can see when you click on 'Petals on a Rose'. I see it! But, only two of you see it necessary to respond? I'm sure some of you write, I'm absolutely sure that those who write enjoy hearing (seeing?) that other people enjoy their writing. Listen, I don't think I'm a great writer. I don't. I'm not. But I love this, I love weaving these stories. I see these authors with stories that are, what, sixteen chapters in length but have 300 reviews. That's not fair; I'm not that bad, am I? I'm not asking for a few hundred reviews, but if you read this it's not fair to me, as the author, to not receive any feedback. Think about it this way, don't you pay to see a play? What is that? A story being woven in front of your eyes. Now, I'm not a famous actor but I deserve a form of compensation for my work. I deserve to be praised or condemned as you choose. I put so much time into this, and I'm so tired of it. I'm sick of tapping away every night; I try to write for you all every night! But I'm not receiving emails saying that the last chapter was good, or it was awful, I don't care. I don't. You are allowed your opinion; all I ask is that you share it with me.**

**I love this story; I love all of these oneshots. Maybe I'm flattering myself, but I believe that (at least due to impeccable spelling and mostly good grammar) they are better than a lot of stuff on this website. They aren't the best in the world, I know that, but they are (I think) good. I love this but I can't do it anymore. So, I have an ultimatum to give: ****seven reviews or I'm done. **** I don't want to buy your love, tell me you hate it for all I care! I just need to see some sort of reason to continue this. I hate to do this, but you aren't leaving me a choice.**

**Upon receiving seven reviews, I will immediately publish a chapter, it's written and everything. If the emails don't come and no one cares enough to write me some sort of justification for continuing, then you will not be seeing any updates on this story except for a final goodbye.**

**Please stop thinking someone else will deliver the praise or critiques you think as you read all of this. Everybody seems to think somebody else will do it and the result is no one is reviewing. I've given you frequent updates and over two dozen lengthy chapters; I think that that it is fair to ask for a moment of your time to review. I've written 40 pages of this, that's a lot. I'm asking your for two sentences. I think you have it in you.**

**In case you don't like reading my rambles, 7 reviews or I'm out. Done. Gone. Poof.**


	26. So Sorry

I haven't forgotten you! I lost the piece I wrote in case I came back (we met the quotient so here I am). I'm going through a lot of really rough stuff. I'm not trying to make excuses, but I'm falling to pieces right now. It'd be awesome if you would bear with me while I try to put myself back together, which I seem to have to do frequently. Because this is really how I'm feeling right now, if/when I come back (it'll be soon, I hope) stuff may be darker, just as a warning. This has a lot to do with bullying and self image and just an accumulation of everything that's gone wrong in the past year, it's really not about you guys. I may write tonight, or maybe next week, I don't know. I'll write when I need to and when I feel up to it, and it'd be really appreciated if you could find it in your heart to forgive me for not keeping my word.

Once again, I'm sorry.

-Allya


	27. Still really sorry

**A/N: Okay, I told you I was going though a lot, well, none of it's romance. I wish it was, though. I though you all deserved something, if I was going to write I wanted you all (this only applies to the fantastic people who review, the rest of you don't make me feel too guilty) to have something. So, this isn't RoseXScor, but it's autobiographical, so that should count for something, right? I'm sorry, I've had a horrible night and I just needed to write this. If you like fluff (or my stories of dead people) you don't have to read, because this isn't anything like my norm.**

**Every** person _needs_ someone

The someone they can talk to when curled up

_**S o b b i n g**_

The someone who will take them seriously

And tell them **exactly** what they need to hear

To get through the pain

Every person needs someone to **save them**

.

Because when _you_'re lying on the ground

And **tears** are spilling from your closed eyes

And your breath is coming quickly

It's not a good time to realize that **you**

Have _no one_

Because when you needneed**need** to be told you are loved

And there is no one around to _say_ it

**It hurts**

.

So give them all a fake smile

And tell them it's not **that** bad

_You'll get over it_

But **inside** you are d y i n g a little

Because _they_ dismissed your claims

Like they didn't **matter**

(like you don't matter)

.

And you **always** thought you were the girl

Who had it all

So many friends to laugh _with_

And **smile** at

And so much fortune

Because your life **is** _(seems)_ great

But you always notice that at the **worst** times

The times when you really need a shoulder to lean on

_Everyone_ seems to scatter

And so you

And your _burden_

**Are alone**

.

_Try _and smile, honey

For **real** this time

'cause you've never done _anything_ to them

And those who never do evil

Should never be **punished**

_(Right?)_

So **why **do they stare and laugh at you?

.

I know your fingers are slipslip_slipping_

And your grip is loosening

And your **will** is fading fast

B u t

_Hold on_

Because it'll all be worth it one day

You've never done **anything** to them

And they'll realize that soon

_They have to_

.

They are just small people

And they don't matter _much_

So even though you feel like

They are **ripping** you to shreds

You need to wait it out

Because they don't _deserve _your tears

.

It hurts **really** bad,

Doesn't it, _sweetheart_?

But you are so pure, so good

You deserve so much **more** than them

And they'll understand that _one day_

When **you** are successful

And _they_ are the dirt under your shoes

.

It's the meanest thing you've **ever** done

_Wishing them ill_

But

**Its okay**

Because they've done much worse

.

So **chin up**

And wipe away the _traitorous_ tears

Don't let them think they've got you down

And then rise **up**

Because, _honey_,

**You're**worth it


	28. Not in Love with Him

**I'm kind of back. Um, you'll have to read in-between the lines to really understand why I was gone. It's much too short. I'm sorry.**

This wasn't a love letter, she told herself, it wasn't. It couldn't be. Because Rose Weasley didn't write love letters. Rose Weasley was practical, and feelings like love were impulsive and largely imaginary. So it wasn't a love letter because she wasn't in love.

But what really is love? She could have sworn she felt something, a tingling in her stomach or an acceleration of her heart, when he looked her way. But that was just hormones, her body telling her that he would be a good candidate for reproduction because his traits would combine with hers to form a child that would be more immune to sickness. It was just a chemical reaction, basically. Because love didn't exist.

There were things she enjoyed, the glow of accomplishment from learning a particularly difficult spell or the small smile she allowed herself when she received 'E's in every one of her classes; but those were because she was given a task and excelled at it. And the results were real, tangible. Feelings, like love and fear, couldn't be reached or studied and, therefore, only had an impact because people believed and expected them to have an impact. Love affected anything unless people made it so. And Rose didn't believe in love, so it couldn't hurt her or hinder her.

Sure, sometimes he made her feel special, often he'd fiddle with a strand of her hair or hold her hand briefly and she felt a little fluttering in her chest but that was just because… because science explained everything. Because love didn't exist and couldn't touch her. Couldn't hurt her. Because Rose Weasley watched her parent's marriage fall apart, watch her mother cry and her father resort to finding peace from the emptiness in a bottle. She stood by as she was ignored; her parents both too busy wallowing in their own pity to see how apathetic she was becoming, too busy with themselves to notice that she didn't care anymore, didn't care about anything anymore. And they'd each come and whine to her but neither listened when she came asking for help. Because love, even between a parent and a child, didn't do anything. It didn't stop them from forgetting that she needed attention, hugs, kisses, pats on the back. They were too occupied falling out of love to realize that all she really needed was their hearts. Love only hurt, only destroyed. Only fools fell in love.

History always repeats itself, a motto she lived by, the same things always happened again. And her parents, who were once so blissful, demolished their peace. That meant it would happen to her, too. Because nothing was ever a one time occurrence. Love never worked. And what did it leave in the rubble? A teenager so battered and bruised and insecure that she hid herself under layers and layers and refused to let go. And no matter how little Rose believed in love, she believed in keeping the pain of the future generation minimal, and so, she vowed never to love because she never wanted anyone else to ever watch as a marriage, a family, fell apart.

So she'd never write a love letter, because love didn't exist. This was just a letter, nothing more. She touched the pen down to the pale parchment and traced out careful letters.

_I love you._

Yeah, Rose Weasley didn't believe in love. And this wasn't a love letter.

**I figured because I obviously suck so much at delivering on my promises I'd at least give you all a happy ending. Good enough, right?**


	29. Drowning without Him

**A/N: I'm sorry! There's still a lot going on. But after my near-nervous breakdown today I needed to write. So here it is, just for you all. (I told you I loved you!)**

She's just the girl runrun_running_ away from everything **( **h i m **)** because she's Rose Weasley, dammit, and she doesn't need yet another problem on her plate, she has enough to worry about without him interfering. And famous parents be damned, life is fucking hard sometimes.

Because she's the girl who takes all the hard classes and alwaysalways excels. Failure isn't an option when you're the daughter of Hermione Granger. And she has generations of blood that runs red and gold but no one bats a ginger eyelash when she is declared a Ravenclaw.

But little Rosie's tired of all the nevernevernever ending stream of expectations and one think leads to another and its **not** her fucking fault_, Lorcan told her to do it_, and she's skipping class and painting her eyelids black. And he doesn't have time to catch up because she's told him oncetwice**athousand** times to bloody fuck off. She doesn't want to be burdened by him.

Deepdeep down inside is a child, the Petal (damn that old nickname) who used to love swinging sosohigh in her dad's arms and cuddling with thread-bare teddies. And all that black eyeliner isn't painting her heart, try as she might to stain it dark. So she does the only thing she knows how to do, and she applies more mascara and gives a smile**grimace**smirk because she's **not** her fucking mother, _understand_?

But the boy is damn persistent and doesn't bloody give up because he knows (even if she doesn't) that she's something worth chasing. And he hopes **one day** she'll let down her iron gates and chain-link fences and wipe off her caked foundation; so he keeps trailing the whirlwind girl.

The 'T's keep coming and _Mrs. Brightest-Witch-of-Her-Age_ isn't fucking pleased but what can she do to fix any of it? And besides, Rosie doesn't give a fuck about how you're doing all this for her, **mommy dearest**. So nothing changes except for a slight, little, itty-bitty shift, a slip, one might say; as everyone, little by little, gives up on the rebellious girl with the bright blue eyes.

By the time she realizes she's drowning the waters up soso high, climbing into her nose and mouth and she's choking, she can't breathe, and nobody, not a single person, is around to save her. **But him**. Because he's been waitwaitwaiting for her to notice the water creeping higher and maybe her epiphany was a little (**a lot**) late, and maybe he's almost sinking because his legs are so tired from treading water but it's all going to be okay because the ocean is getting shallower and her tears are washing away her black mascara. And he'll hold her, because that's what he's been waiting for, and his arms will fit her perfectly and he won't evereverever let go. Because he could never give up on her (_he always was bloody persistent_).


	30. Apologizing to Him

The bartender considered himself the porter of hell, serving the miserable more unhappiness on ice. They flocked to him for safety and refuge and he betrayed them by enabling them to drink sweet elixirs that whispered more abuse in their ears. The men and occasional woman mounted on the stools of his bar were very much like corpses in a graveyard, but these just had yet to be buried.

She stumbled, high heels making her totter on elongated legs, to an oak stool where she fell, gracelessly. The bartender gave her a small smile, his chin sporting the dark shadow of one working long hours. His hands reaching for a grimy glass, he asked, "what do you want?" and she responded, her red lips opening softly to allow the word exit, "anything". He used a pink striped dishcloth to polish the glass and then pulled a lever to pour a foamy liquid into the mug. Sliding it across the polished bar, he turned his back on the lonely girl to prepare another drink for another broken soul.

Across the dimly lit room, a woman took the stage. The stage itself was just a platform sitting two feet off of the paneled floor, but it was lit with soft green lights and there was a microphone to sing into. The petite brunette tapped the microphone once, twice, three times, afterwards muttering into it "is this thing on?" to which drunken voices cried out "yes!" and so she began her performance.

And, thus, she sang.

The bartender almost dropped this nearly opaque glass he was attempting to polish, catching it moments before it crashed to the floor. His blue eyes widened and he fell a few steps forward until he was leaning on the counter, elbows resting on the glistening surface, his dazed head cupped in his hands.

The tall pretty blond slid her tongue across her crimson lips, savoring all the remained over her drink. She listened to the singer carefully, admiring each word and each artful waver. The girl, a small brunette, was talented. Very talented. Her voice faded out as the song concluded. Everyone let out a breath, a wash of alcohol scented air, as some of the more sentimental drunks dabbed at their teary eyes.

"So, um, I'm Rose and this is Cry, a song I wrote, myself. Thank you for coming out here tonight." She stopped for a moment, at a loss for words. From a darkened corner a voice yelled "sing!" and she, the bartender was surprised to note, obliged.

"…._Everything is building up_

_And everything is crashing down…."_

Her sweet voice wove complicated melodies through the song, twisting each line, each word, each note as she strummed a quiet tune on her guitar. Just her on the green stage with a guitar and a microphone.

She sung for an hour with no interruptions.

But her timeslot was over, much to the chagrin of all of the patrons of the dingy bar, so she stood up and thanked everyone once more, and then climbed down from the small stage.

"You want anything?" The bartender offered, "it's on the house, our treat to an amazing performer."

"Oh no," the brunette responded, "I don't drink."

She made her way to the door, a dimly lit 'exit' sign glowing green above the black border, but was stopped before she could pass the bar.

"You're Rose?" A blond woman asked her. She, always the honest one, nodded. "You have a beautiful voice," the woman added.

"Thank you," Rose smiled, she had been told the same thing for years now but it never really got old. Nothing was better than the high of a good performance and the thrill of a compliment.

"I'm Astoria," the blond introduced herself, offering her hand to Rose, who accepted the handshake.

"Nice to meet you," Rose continued the exchange of pleasantries but felt more than a little confused as to why she was meeting this woman.

"You know my son,"

"I did, once upon a time," Rose confessed.

"He loved you." Astoria stated. Rose blushed slightly, but didn't deny the statement that sounded suspiciously like an accusation.

"How is Scorpius?" Rose politely enquired.

"He died. Today." Rose felt the room spin, she grabbed the mahogany counter of the bar and sank into a nearby stool.

"A drink, now." Rose commanded the bartender.

"I though you didn't drink," he teased, she just stared blankly forward. Astoria melted into the crowd.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." She repeated under her breath, grabbing the shot glass from the table and tossing her head back. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." She grabbed another shot and downed it, savoring the burn of the alcohol hitting her throat.

Shot after shot she swallowed until she was surrounded by empty glasses and forgotten why her chest ached so bad. Some other lonely soul desperately seeking approval took the stage. They were flat. She registered vague annoyance but it fluttered away quickly, the thought stolen by her spinning head. A boy, a blond with silver eyes, slid up next to his hand moved slowly to her forearm.

"Stop this." He told her.

"Scorpius?" She stared at the pale figure, she knew something was wrong with him being here, sitting next to her but she couldn't quite place what was a matter.

"Rosie-Posie, I'm not worth it."

"I'm so sorry, Scor, I'm sorry!" She tried to pull him closer but couldn't make him move.

"Rose, stop."

To the bartender, the girl was talking to thin air, sobbing into her napkin and making pitiful apologies to the empty chair next to her.

And it was just another melancholy song playing a sweet hum in the background, lodging itself into her brain until her ale soaked mind was vibrating with the beautiful melody.

**I'm back. Ish. I just don't have the time nor inspiration to write, I'm really sorry. But how was this? It kind of gushed out, but I rather like it.**


	31. Scared of Him

**Swearing. And I don't own Harry Potter (sadly).**

The two of them stood alone by the lake, the wind picked up a bit and he brushed a loose strand of orange hair behind her ear.

"It's just; I'm not good at this. At any of this. I don't know how to love and be loved. All I know is that I've wanted you forever and you're here, and you're talking to me, and I'm thinking about how I could get away as quickly as possible because you and we don't belong together. We don't! You're so sweet and honest and earnest and I'm, I'm twisted and I'm mangled and I'm not fucking good enough for you to love me. Don't love me. I'm not worth it." She glanced up at him, pleading with her eyes for him to understand. He met her gaze with a defiant one of his own.

"You're worth it to me," because the truth was that simple to him. She felt a flash of hot anger, his refusal to accept what she was saying would cost them both more of the unbearable pain that would later come. His shortsighted argument would fuel her sobs once she was alone.

"No! Shut up, shut up! Don't say things like that, things that make me melt and wonder what it would be like to be kissing you right now. Don't. I can't handle you saying things like that. I need this, I need you to take me seriously and know that it's really not you. It's me, I mean it." She did mean it, it wasn't anything to do with him. He was perfect. He knew when she was feeling down and he always greeted her with a shy peck on the cheek. He wasn't overbearing but he didn't conveniently forget he had a girl friend when pretty witches walked by. In short, he was the ideal boy friend.

"You really, you really want to do this? Do this to us?" He was dumbfounded. Everything had, at last he checked, been going perfectly. He found himself falling more and more in love with her by the day, and had been under the impression the same had been happening to her.

"You're not listening! There is no 'us'. There's no 'we'. I can't take there being an 'us' because that means there's no 'me' and that makes me feel so suffocated I slowly begin to resent you and I don't want to hate you, I fucking love you, but I resent you because you make me despise myself." She wasn't good enough for him. This was apparent to her early on in their relationship, he'd say sweet, loving things and she'd have no response. She had known for a while that their dating was a mistake, for him if not her.

"I still don't understand, you love me, I love you, why isn't that good enough?" He would be, for lack of a better term, _fine _if this all was because she didn't love him. He just wanted her to be happy and if this would make her happy, then it would kill him but it'd be okay. But if she loved him, why do this?

"Because as much as I love you, I don't love me. And I can't put you through that right now. I need some time, Scor, I need some time to figure out who I am." She had no clue what was going on, she lusted after him for months, getting to know him and then finding herself falling for him. Hard. But the second he asked her out she felt a flicker of something. What? First she thought it was discomfort and she would just need to acclimate to the swooping sensation in her stomach. But she had finally placed it, it was fear. She was scared. Of what, she had no clue.

"You know what your problem is, Rosie? You have no fucking clue what you want." It was so obvious they were meant for each other. So obvious that some of the professors had noticed and made sly comments. Of course, all of the students in Gryffindor had been begging them to date since the two began their excessive flirting before they finally decided to go out.

"Yeah, Scor, that's exactly what's wrong. I can't figure out how to be happy, so I'm miserable. I'm miserable with you, I'm miserable without you, and I'm even more miserable because you're making this difficult. I don't want to hurt you, I love you, but I just can't do this anymore." And she couldn't. She couldn't handle the dread of seeing him, the fear that she was going to really fall for him and then ruin it all. So, him, this relationship, had to go. She needed it to go.

"You don't want to hurt me? Really? You think this wouldn't hurt me? You were my first, Rosie, you were my first love, my first girl friend, the first person I have ever found who listened to me without judging me for my father. You are everything to me. You don't want to hurt me? Well, you did a pretty shitty job then, Petal, because this fucking hurts." He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe that he had finally trusted her with his heart, finally let his guard down, and she was doing this.

"Scor! Scor, no, please no. Don't, Scor, don't do this to me. Don't make me-"He silenced her with a violent shake of his head, making his almost white hair resettle around his pale face.

"Make you what? Make you realize that this is a mistake? Rose, I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. And that," he stepped closer to her, but she took a hurried step away, "is not a mistake."

"Stop! Why can't you just listen to me? Stop. I don't want to hear all of the pretty words that you speak to make me fall in love with you." Her voice cracked along with her calm façade. Tears began streaming in earnest down her freckled cheeks. He reached a finger up to wipe away one of the drops but she swatted his hand away. "I don't want to hear how you will brighten up my world and teach me to smile and wipe away my tears and call me beautiful because my world's too dark to be lit by your voice and my heart's too heavy to let me smile and I'm sobbing too hard to wipe away each tear, and, Scor, I'm too fucking ugly to be beautiful. So don't. Don't call me beautiful because then you're just a liar." As she spoke, he tried again to move in closer, this time she placed her palm on his chest and pushed. Unfortunately for her, her small weight was not enough to unbalance him.

"It's not a lie, Rosie, you're, you're everything to me. You're perfect. I love you." His steps were quick, and before she knew what he was doing she was in his arms and his lips were whispering the words, always pretty words, in her ear.

"Do you want to hurt me more, Scor? Is that what you're trying to do now?" She yelled, "Because my heart is fucking splitting in two because I hate doing this but you won't stop, no, you just don't stop. Let me hate you, let me hate me, let me just hate us so all of this goes away." The tears were dried by her rage now. He was being uncooperative; she hadn't expected he'd take it like this. And it hurt. It hurt because he was right and nothing was wrong but her. She was wrong. And he didn't get it.

"You're fucking selfish, aren't you? You think this is all about you? You think it'll all be better once you get rid of me-"

"No, no, no, no! I don't think it'll get better, but it'll be easier. It'll be easier for both of us." She hoped it would be easier. She knew that her chest ached when she was alone but her stomach erupted with butterflies that felt more like birds when she was with him, and not in a good way, she felt despair when she was with him because every second was spent wondering how she could survive without his rough, calloused hand in her own.

"There is no easier for me, Rosie, you're everything to me and there's no easy way you could make me let go. Rose, this isn't a dream, this isn't a fairytale where it all gets better, but you're human, you need support and comfort and I can't be your prince charming but I'll be a shoulder for you to cry on. I want this for so long, I wanted us for so long, and it's not a dream anymore, Rosie, this is worth fighting for. What we have, dear, it's worth hurting for because this is love. This is it; this is what people spend their lives searching for. Don't ruin it all, Rose, don't ruin it for both of us." His eyes began tearing up. He felt vaguely embarrassed but everything was overshadowed by the crushing thought that she may be gone soon. He couldn't stand loosing her.

"Oh Scorpius," she sighed, "You can't just let me do this, can you?" And in the back of her mind she knew that he couldn't just let her do this, and she also kind of knew that she didn't want him to just let her walk away.

"No, because that'd be a mistake. I don't want you to make that mistake." He moved forward, and she didn't back up this time.

"Scor, nobody is as lucky as me to have someone like you, but you need to understand, I need to go. I can't do this. Please, Scor, please just stop. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but I can't do this." Her protests were meek, her hand went back to his chest but she didn't push now, it just sat and rose and fell with his slow breathing.

He looked into her eyes for a moment, stooping until her lips met his. She didn't fight him, but stood still as his hands went around her waist and pulled her closer. Finally, hesitantly, she melted into his arms.

His lips brushed her ear as he whispered, "yes you can. And even if you can't, we can."

**A/N: Hey guys! It's a happy ending, want to know why? Because I'm dating. Yes, Allya, the cynic of love, is dating. And he's wonderful. But there are a lot of parallels between me and him in this story. We haven't had this conversation, but I know as unrealistic as this dialog seems from Scor's part (too Prince-Charmingy) it's actually what he would say. He's a real sweet heart. But I'm really screwed up, as we've all seen. I'm having trouble dealing but I'm going to hang in there because he's really worth it. **

**PLEASE REVIEW. No ultimatums, just know that chapters come faster when I feel appreciated.**


	32. Being in Love with Him

**Relatively abstract, but I think I rather like it.**

_Butterflies beat their gem colored wings, jewel tones flapping delicately in the wind as the butterfly pushes, straining against each gust. They travel in orange and black packs, painting the sky with their pulsating bodies. One moment they're there, swarms of fluttering wings making the air thick and heavy, the next they are gone, leaving only a blue cloudless sky. There is no warning before their sudden appearance and no trace after they fade into the horizon._  
_But, for a few seconds, not a long time at all, they surround everything. The gentle flapping of their richly toned wings brushes against leaves. Each small motion does not even carry the strength to rustle the scarlet leaves but when they all congregate, the leaves shudder and fall onto the frost-bitten ground, covering the white blankness by painting it deep shades of red._  
_It always starts that way, a multitude of ember tones and the gentle press of the wings kissing the skin of awed admirers; it always starts in a silent rush until one can't see their hand in front of their face. And then, the migration ends, just like that. There are wings beating like pitter-pattering hearts and then a sudden emptiness. The world experiences a brief rush of color and then returns to shades of dull grey. Every year it always starts and ends just like that. The best part is the rare moment when there is nothing around but butterflies, the beginning and end nowhere in sight._

The two walked out of the main doors, laughing and giggling. He threw his arm over her shoulders and she slipped hers around his back.  
"I mean, when you caught the snitch- Magnificent!" He gushed; a blush tinted her pale face pink in the evening light.  
"You know I couldn't have done it without you. I mean, what's any seeker without beaters to protect them?" She puller herself closer to him, shivering as the cold air hit her skin and goose-bumps erupted on any exposed flesh.  
"Well then, you're welcome for the win," he bowed ostentatiously, and she laughed as his antics.  
It was silent for a few moments as the pair walked further away from the castle. When at last they reached a spot he deemed suitable, they spread out their gold and red checked blanket onto the damp ground. From out of a wicker basket that she clinged to with frozen fingers, she pulled a glass bottle and two glasses with long, tapered stems. She popped the cork on the bottle with her hands clumsy with chill. From the mouth of the green bottle a yellow froth foamed, she shrieked and practically threw him the bottle. He grinned at her reaction and expertly poured each glass full, twisting the bottle by the neck when he was finished to avoid drips.  
"A toast," she announced.  
"To finals being over," he added, offering her a glass. She accepted it from his hand with a smile.  
"To having the freedom to spend our evenings not studying," she said, emphasizing 'not' emphatically, he laughed.  
"To spending our evenings together," he spoke softly, staring into her eyes for a moment.  
"To being together," she smiled shyly.  
"To us." He whispered, leaning forward. She met his lips gently. Her eyes fluttered shut as time slowed to a halt. After what seemed like both an eternity and no time at all, she pulled away.  
"Us," she breathed.  
"I'll drink to that," he took a long gulp, emptying the contents of his glass. She sipped daintily, grimacing at the burn in her throat until after the alcohol numbed her mouth sufficiently and just tingled as she swallowed.  
The night stained the sky the deepest blue, pinpricks of stars peeking through the velvet navy backdrop. Only a sliver of moon was visible, its light blurred by the lazy drifting of the cloud. Sometimes the silver shined over the two of them, making her hair sparkle and his porcelain skin glow like something from another world.  
"Scor," she murmured, the late hour making her words slow and her tongue clumsy in her mouth, "Scor, I love you."  
It wasn't the first declaration of love the pair had shared, and it wouldn't be last. But, even with the regular use of that phrase she still felt an eruption in her stomach as her head spun and her heart beat quicker. He leaned in until his forehead was pressed right up against hers.  
"I love you too."

_Love is an explosion of butterflies migrating south for the cold winter. Love is wings brushing in your stomach, your throat, falling out of your lips and taking flight. Love is being surrounded until you feel like you are suffocating but you're not, even though the air is thick and heavy. Love comes from nowhere and everywhere and then, just as suddenly, disappears. Love is orange and red and black and velvety wings beating one, two, three times until all the leaves fall and your tree is left bare until flowers bud and a new love blossoms, until that too, knocks each and every leaf off. Love is having a picnic late at night under the soft light of the moon while a single butterfly traverses the sky._

**Thank you for all the well wishes! He is being really sweet about me being a horrible girlfriend. Actually, I'm texting him right now and being very demanding because I'm a. bored and b. have a low self-esteem. But he's a good guy and… you know, I'm not going to get into this right now.**  
**Anywho, I LOVED getting all the reviews last time J**


	33. Learning about Him

There was so much she didn't know about him, she realized, they had been dating two whole weeks and there was still so many parts of his life she was unaware of. She knew his favorite color: red, his favorite subject: charms, and his birthday: April 13th, but there was so much she still didn't know. She didn't know his favorite food, or if he chewed his lip while he thought, she didn't know his first best friend. She knew so much, but so, so little. And she was determined to change that.

"Hey babe," he greeted her with a peck on the cheek.

"Hey yourself," she grinned, basking in his attention like a reptile basks in the heat of the sun, "what's your favorite food?" She asked, getting right to the point. Being subtle was not one of Rose's strong points.

"Shrimp scampi, why?" He answered, giving her a confused look.

"Oh no reason," she airily brushed him off, "what's your favorite book?"

"What is this, an interrogation?" He said the words with a smile, but they came off bitter and biting.

"I just want to know…" Rose whined.

"Fine then," he answered, "Lord of the Flies."

"Ew!" She exclaimed, "why do you like that book? It's awful!"

"First you demand my answer and then you challenge it?" His eyebrows rose in incredulity and frustration, "I just like the fucking book, okay?"

"But why?" She pressed, "Nothing happens in it except for a bunch of young boys being idiots."

"It's very telling about human nature," he responded tersely.

"But it's an awful book, there are so many better out there." She continued.

"Do you not get it? Shut. Up. Honestly, don't ask me things and then insult them when I say I enjoy them. So just shut up."

"Someone's PMSing," she muttered.

"What?" He asked, hands clenched into tight fists at his sides, "what did you just say?"

"I said," she over enunciated, "someone's PMSing."

He was livid. He hadn't had an easy day, and he expected to come back to the dorm for a little peace and quiet, but his girlfriend, in her usual style, instead chose to piss him off.

"You know what?" his eyes flashed, a darkness taking over the usual pale silver, "leave me alone. I can't deal with this tonight."

"Ooh," Rose sneered, half playful, half filled with a probing curiosity. How far would his bad mood extend? "Someone's a little testy tonight."

"That's it, Rose!" His rage, bottled up from a day of bad marks on essays, failed tests, rained out practice, and every other imaginable annoyance, came down on her. "That is it. I asked you to stop. I told you not to badmouth my favorite book. I told you to shut the fuck up. Did you listen? No! You never listen! You never listen to me. All day long I hear you talking about yourself, everything about yourself. I'm sick of your whiny voice and your blabbering, not even coherent sentences. Just shut the fuck up and leave me alone."

"Like you're any better!" She snapped, "you sit in your brooding silences and make me feel alone. I always feel alone! You don't talk, you don't open your mouth to speak and so I have to! I only talk because otherwise we'd sit there and the silence would consume us. I only talk because-"

"You only talk, Rosie," he sneered her name, "Because you like the sound of your own voice."

Tears welled up in her eyes; she turned her back so he couldn't see them fall. The cheery firelight which usually brought welcome warmth seemed to burn her, the crackling was deafening. It was quiet, totally silent save for the fire's groans, for a few minutes. Neither moved.

After a little while, she hiccupped. It was a small noise, but it still let on to the near sobs that had tears racing down her cheeks. He took three long steps forward and pulled her into his arms. She just stood there, clinging to him.

"I only talk," she whispered, "because I'm afraid that, if I'm silent, everybody will forget about me. I only talk because I don't know how else to remind people I'm here. If I don't talk, everyone forgets about me. Scor, I don't want to be forgotten."

He pressed his lips into the top of her head, just allowing her to cry.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, "I'm so sorry."

"But enough about me," her trilling laugh sounded joltingly artificial, "why are you always so quiet?"

"Because I hope to be forgotten." His answer was simple, there wasn't too much to say. All his life he had been subjected to the stares and the whispers that followed the son of a well-known death eater. All his life unwelcome attention had been paid to him, a bright spotlight blinding his vision. So he had learned to shut up, to just close his mouth and pretend not to exist.

"Oh Scor," she sighed. She began to weep for both of them, the forgotten girl, the one always one step behind in a crowed of seemingly millions; and the pale boy, jeered at in the streets with unwanted praise for the horrendous acts of his father or unwarranted hatred for his ancestry. "Oh Scor," she repeated.

He looked down at her, chewing his lip thoughtfully. She grinned briefly.

"What is it?" He smiled.

"Oh nothing," but her eyes were still sparkling, with light and happiness now, not tears.

"Tell me," he pressed.

"You just bite your lip while you think," Rose explained.

"And?" A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"And I find that to be incredibly endearing," she stood on her tip toes to kiss him.

There's still so much she doesn't know about him. She doesn't know his grandmother's name or what pets, if any, he has back home. She doesn't know what makes his heart ache or why he sometimes smiles when staring off into space. But there's some things she knows, she know his favorite color: red, his favorite class: charms, his birthday: April 13th, his favorite book: Lord of the Flies, his favorite food: shrimp scampi, she knows that he bites his lip while he thinks, and she know that they have a hard time together. But she also knows she loves him.

**Hey y'all, I'm in the Big Apple until Wednesday. So all the writing is vacation writing, which everyone knows is the best kind.**

**REVIEW and get a cookie.**


	34. Listening with Him

**Songs are mentioned by band, lyrics, and subject here, if you can guess a few of the specific songs I'll dedicate a chapter to you, read and review a few of your fanfictions (if you have any), and write with a prompt you give me.**  
**P.S. I know I'm a total teenage girl with my music, don't judge me.**

Her music is loud, so loud it can be heard from a few feet away from her black headphones. They're the good kind, big and cushiony around her ears, when you take music this seriously you do not skimp on headphones. She could tell you all about them, talk to you about the "amazing sound quality" and how "it sounds like you're on stage with the band, so vivid and crisp" but you, if you're anything like everyone else she's spoken to, wouldn't care. So she'd stay silent, just adjusting her music a little louder, because she knows, or at least thinks she knows, that you wouldn't care.  
It's a muggle device, an iTouch, that travels with her, making all of her favorite songs portable. It holds an astronomical number of albums, all of which she hand selects to load onto the device. She knows its silly toy, and not appropriate for a witch to have at magical boarding school, but she's long past feeling embarrassed. When people stare and whisper, as they inevitably do, she just, yes, turns the music louder.  
There are so many songs on there, but even more surprising is the variation in genre. Her father, an avid Beatles fan, insisted she listen to some of their music, and she quite likes it. Her mother gave her some songs from when she, Ron, and Harry traveled the country in search of horcruxes, a mix of pop, classical, and different ethnic sounds. But Rose, a moody being, is currently in an alternative phase; listening to bands her classmates have never heard of.  
She thinks she must be going deaf, it must be the loud music all the time, as she sits in the library on a cold Saturday night. In her ears Paramore is practically screaming about change being good, a philosophy Rose disagrees with. With a quiet sigh she glances down at the half-complete parchment lying in front of her. Out of habit, her hand travels up to her temple, intending to tuck a lock of hair behind her headphone-d ears. Her fingers encounter nothing but air as she once again realizes, with a start, that her formally long mane has been chopped down to a few short inches in length. She gives the empty room a self-conscious smile, curiously embarrassed by her blunder. She bows her head and tries to get back to work, but her mind instantly wanders to the metaphors used in the song that just started blasting. She didn't quite understand what about lions felt like a mistake to All Time Low, but she loved the beat to the track.  
"Excuse me, excuse me," a pale boy stands behind her, repeating his question to covered ears that couldn't hear his query over the crooning of music. Finally, he gently taps her shoulder. Rose jumps in her seat, too absorbed in the beautiful melody Death Cab for Cutie had created in one of her all time favorite songs, one that was melancholy but promising. She absentmindedly wonders if anyone would follow her into the dark. With a huffed sigh, she turns to face the person that so flustered her. After a few wordless moments, she realizes she can't hear his voice over the piano that is now playing. Carefully, she pauses the track and removes her headphones, letting them slide down to her neck like a clunky necklace.  
"Oh, hello," she greets him, not meanly but a touch cooler than polite; he did make her stop her music after all.  
"Rose, I was wondering if you knew the answer to question twenty of the potions homework." Scorpius asks, not hesitant even with her almost hostile tone.  
"Yeah, hang on a second," she thumbs through a notebook sitting next to her iPod, "I got basil leaf, I'm pretty sure that's right but don't take my word for it."  
"Oh Rose," he chuckles, "if you say that's the answer, I'm sure that's the answer." And it is. Rose is, after all, the brightest witch of her age, her potions worksheet wouldn't have a single mistake on it.  
"Stop it," she smiles, noting that he didn't write down the information she just gave him. They both know that he didn't actually need help on the homework, that it is sitting completed on top of his books in his dorm room. They both know he used a feeble lie to justify coming over and sitting next to her. They both know it, neither says a word.  
"So," he slides into the seat across from her, "what are you listening to today?"  
She leans in, obvious pleasure making her eyes sparkle in the dim lamp light, "Oh you know, the regular, but with a touch more of a vocal quality," he nods her to continue, smiling at her enthusiasm, "Sara Bareilles, Adele, and Norah Jones. And also, shockingly, I like that album mum got me last year, the one from that a capella group in the United States, the Wiffenpoofs. Funny name, right?" He laughs encouragingly. "But what about you, what are you into?"  
"The Eagles, at least today, the classics, Hotel California and the like." He responds, his hands blindly searching for his music player among his books. He finds it without taking his eyes off of her.  
"Hotel California?" she acts, feigning surprise, "but that's, like, the worst! I'm a sucker for The Girl From Yesterday, but Hotel California's way too mainstream."  
"Are you kidding me?" He grins at the debate, "it's a classic, and not at all mainstream, ask anybody in the halls here, nobody knows it!"  
"That's because nobody here knows good music," she responds smugly.  
"Except us, right Rosie?" He asks with a conspiratorial wink.  
"Except us," she agrees. From the table her iPod comes to life, murmuring "I promise you kid I give so much more than I get, I just haven't met you yet." With a blush, she touches the double vertical bars that silence the sudden sound, "Sorry about that, it's been going off randomly," she gazes at the device affectionately, "I think she's getting to the end of her lifespan, poor baby."  
"We'll have to have a funeral service," he adds in solemnly, making her giggle.  
"But, seriously, I have no clue how I'd get a new one before going home for the summer. I don't trust my parents with picking out a new iPod, we both know they'd screw it up major." The two share a laugh, a warm, happy glow shining over the pair.  
"I'm always wrong but you're never right," Rose's malfunctioning iPod adds in, causing Rose and Scorpius to erupt in loud laughter.  
"One of these days," Scorpius teases, "that's going to happen in class, then you'll be in big trouble."  
"Already did," Rose's voice is regretful, "I have detention on Monday."  
The lights flicker a bit, signaling closing time for the library and curfew for the students not yet in their Houses.  
"Suppose it's time to go," Scorpius whispers.  
"Yeah," Rose murmurs, "I suppose it is."  
And so the two get up, gather their books, and walk back to Ravenclaw, neither speaking a word to the other. The dimming of lights always comes as a signal to the flaw that is their quiet friendship, it never leaves the library.  
The days pass, as slowly as they possibly could, but it is soon Christmas break. Both Rose and Scorpius are going home for the holidays. As they load the Hogwarts Express bound for Platform 9 ¾, they run into each other and silently duck into an empty compartment. It is an unspoken truth that the sanctity of the library has now extended to this small space.

"So," he says, "what are you listening to today?"

And so they talk. And talk. And talk. And soon enough the train is pulling into the station. Rose turns to grab her bags, just a few because the break is so short, while Scorpius pulls something from his kakhi knapsack.

"Hey Rose," he hands her a silver wrapped gift, "happy Christmas." The present is small, not much bigger than a deck of cards. She unwraps the gift to find a sleek black iPod, a replacement for her broken one.

She looks at him, her mouth pulling into a happy smile. "Happy Christmas, Scorpius," she tells him. They move closer together, eyes fluttering shut and breath slowing.

Their lips just brush when, "Can you feel the love tonight?" blares from Rose's broken iPod. They break apart laughing.

**Person to guess the most songs (correctly) wins! Also, how cool am I, pumping out chapter after chapter? I'm actually liking this one quite a bit (:**

**DO NOT FAVORITE WITHOUT REVIEWING. It's just annoying. Seriously. **


	35. Shopping for Him

**Haven't written anything like this in ages. Do you have a box of tissues? Good, you may need them. As always, let me know if you cry!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but an obscene amount of nail polish.**

It wasn't a dreary, rainy day. There weren't grey clouds ominously foreshadowing what was to come. It was just a day, nothing more, nothing less. It wasn't extraordinarily sunny, but it wasn't gloomy either.

Rose was walking back to the castle from Hogsmead. She had only intended to make a very quick trip, just a little last minute Christmas shopping, and she had made sure to do it alone. She had procrastinated quite seriously and still had yet to pick up presents for most of her friends, even though Christmas was only a few days away. So Rose made the journey alone, despite the countless offers by her friends, family, and boyfriend otherwise. She was satisfied, she thought, as she trudged up the hill towards the distant open gates. She had managed to find most everyone a gift, save for her cousin Lily, who was impossible to shop for. Instead, she decided, she'd give Lily some cookies, Lily liked cookies.

The wind was blowing at her, knocking her left and right. An especially strong gust pushed her dainty figure over, leaving her surrounded by heaps of presents in a ditch off to the side of the road she had been, just moments before, walking on. She giggled for a moment, contemplating the wisdom of getting up. It would be futile, she realized quickly, to stand when the wind was still this strong. Better to wait for a gap in the gusts, she reasoned.

And so she sat there, pushed into the slightly damp ditch and not even trying to get out. Instead, she turned her face to the sky and examined the remnants of the brilliance of the fall leaves. Just a few dangled from a tree's bough above, painting her horizon vivid red and gold. She savored the moment for total solitude, when one came from a family the size of hers, moments like this were rare. Not to mention Scorpius. Rose loved her boyfriend so much but he made it difficult, very difficult, for her to ever just have time to be herself.

After a suitable amount of time had passed, she decided it could be time to attempt to traverse the remaining distance to the castle. But, before she could stand, a voice rang out from the road.

"Hey there beautiful, need a hand?" The face of the speaker was obscured due to the lip of the ditch, but she knew well enough that the voice was entirely unfamiliar. Still, she was optimistic because that was how she was raised. Her parents believed in good overcoming and the goodness of human nature and all that. Her mother once told her that everyone was her friend until they proved otherwise.

"Oh yes please!" A hand appeared, hovering by her left shoulder. She grasped it firmly and allowed herself to be lifted until she was lying sprawled on the road. She still didn't recognize the man standing before her.

"What's a pretty girl like you doing traveling alone?" The man sneered, black robes swirling in the now weak wind. The tone of his voice held something, a hint of menace that made her stomach drop painfully. She rose quickly. Without even realizing what she was doing, she took a few steps back. "Now, now," his voice was low, threatening, she realized, "where do you think you're going?"

And that was it. She dropped the bright and cheerful presents, abandoning them on the dusty road. She broke out into a run, sprinting towards the castle with all of the strength her legs could give her. She could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears, a frantic jolting that was alarmingly fast. Her mouth was filled with saliva and hatred as adrenaline pumped though her veins. She ran and ran and ran, but she wasn't fast enough. From behind her, colorful jets of curses and equally colorful language shot towards her moving figure.

She frantically looked behind her, trying to see how close he was. Rose wasn't stupid, she knew that nobody knew where she was and she knew that she couldn't outrun him for long, but she still kept running. And then, for the first time in her life, she prayed. She couldn't explain why she did it, exactly, but she thought that maybe some higher power would lend her a hand. But nobody answered her prayers. So she kept running.

She was falling into a rhythm, left right, left right, breathe in deeply, keep going, keep moving, RUN. From behind, she heard cursing and curses both streaming out of the man's mouth. But his words became background noise as she could only focus on one thing, running like hell.

He grunted. The sharp sound made her swivel her head around so quickly she became dizzy. In the terrifying melody that had become so familiar, the grunt was out of place and disconcerting.

"Get. Away. From. My Girlfriend." A voice, Scorpius' voice. Rose turned fully around, slowing but still jogging backwards. Scorpius had tackled the man, bringing him to the ground. The two were wrestling, sparks flying as each tried to immobilize the other.

"Scorpius!" She screamed, her voice high with fright.

And then there was red. Lots of red, an ocean, a sea, no, just a spot on Scorpius' chest. With a loud crack of violent surrender, the man dissapperated, leaving just Rose and Scorpius standing, facing each other. With a moan, Scorpius took a step forward and fell to his knees. Rose rushed forward, putting her arms around him a murmuring into his hair words of thanks and apology.

"Let's get you to the castle; Madam Shattuck will make it better. Come on, Scor, up! I'll help you, take my arm. We need to go, we need to go now. Come on! While you are strong enough, while you're ali-"

"No," he rasped, "Rosie, no."

Her eyes filled with tears, the clear blue becoming glossy, "what do you mean no?"

"Rose, we're not going to the castle, we're not going to see Madam Shattuck. I can't Rosie, it's too late. I can't." His voice, wavering and weak, held a note of certainty that caused her tears to spill and run down her freckled cheeks. He reached a hand up, and wiped away a droplet with a shaking finger. As they knelt there, the sky darkened slightly and a few snowflakes rained down from the heavens.

"You can. You have to, Scor, you have to go. How else are you going to get better?"

He took a deep shuddering breath, wincing at the pain in his ribs, "I'm not getting better, Rose."

"No!" She screamed into the silent impending darkness, "no, no, no, no, NO! Scor, look at me. Look at me! Come on, it's cold out, let's go. Let's go home, let's go home where it's warm and Madam Shattuck will fix you up and then we'll have plum pudding and open presents and, and, and we'll be happy. Let's go home, Scor." She tugged his arm slightly, hoping to move his heart enough to convince him to move his legs.

"I love you, Rosie," he whispered, his voice faint and his face pale.

"Don't say that, Scorpius, don't say that like it's the last time you are ever going to say it. Don't say you love me like that. Please, please,"

"It is the last time, Rose, this is it. I love you so much." He was slumping, his spine curving as his body became too weak to hold himself up.

"It's not! It's not! I love you Scor, I love you, but this isn't it. You're wrong! This can't be it." She clung to him, holding tightly and not trying to hide her sobs.

"Don't cry, love, please don't cry." His voice grew quieter still.

"I can't, I can't help it. You can't go." Rose's voice broke. The snow continued to fall, the flakes big and soft as they drifted down from the sky.

"Bye Rosie, I love you," he breathed, the words enunciated but lacking so much in volume that she had to strain to hear. By this time, he was lying on his back with her kneeling beside him; the red had spread all across the front of his shirt.

"I love you," she whispered as his eye fluttered shut. She pressed her lips to his, feeling his mouth curve into one last small smile.

And all was silent, the world unchanging save for the building snow. The earth kept turning, the snow kept falling, but Rose just stayed still, bound in place by the memory of her love.

"I love you," she repeated, "Scorpius!" She screamed into the quiet night. No one responded. She laid her head on his chest, thick blood sticking to her pale skin, and cried.


	36. Held Together by Him

She's all toweringhighheels and paintedredlips and stickskinny **beautiful**. She's black dresses and cigarettes dangling, tips glowing orange in the evening light. She's stunning and _perfect_ and sososovery **alone**.

It's been, what, _years_? Since she last felt like she was somewhere safe. Years since she felt like she was truly **home**. Because her parent's house isn't a sanctuary, not with her father's crippling post traumatic stress, or her mother's angry screams. It's not home and she hates it there.

But she's **good** at pretending, good at smiling wide and wiping beneath her eyes to remove all signs of running blackblack**black**_as_**her**_heart_**feels** mascara. She's good at acting, at making up stories and avoiding the truth. And she's good at running away, at retreating far far back inside of herself and shutting down to the outside world. It's what she's** always** done.

People ask her what's wrong, but they don't stop while she opens her mouth to answer. They just _keep walking_, walking awayaway from her. They don't listen. And, God, she **needs** someone to talk to.

She's paralyzed. By doubts, fears, insecurities. She can't move, can't even breathe, because there's a **weight on her chest** and a noose around her neck and _a chain pulling her back to a dirty wall_ in a cell where she will always hold herself prisoner. **She** **can't escape**. And she can't cry out, because nobody cares to listen.

But then he's there.

_What's wrong?_ He whispers. _Tell me._

And she wants to. She wantswants**wants** to tell him everything, to confess away her sins and mend her broken heart but her mouth's not moving and she's choking back sobs and turning around and, _what are you __**doing**__, silly girl?_, running away. Just like always.

She may be _fast_, years of practice have built up strength that results in speed, but he'll **always** be faster because he knows exactly what's at stake, even if she doesn't. So he'll be the _good boy_, the one she's always wanted_needed_**hoped** for, and he'll hold on tight so she can't self-destruct. 'Cause this girl's a time **bomb**, and she'll take everyone down with her.

And once he's caught her, he wraps his arms around her tight, holding her together so she cannot fall _apart_. And she buries her head in his chest, hiding, but not from him. **From the world**. She hides from the world in his embrace. And he holds on, because he'd never let her go.

_Will you tell me now?_ He asks. _Without running away?_

She nods, once, twice, three times and stays c o m p l e t e l y still. **No motion**, not of her legs or her heart because he's standing awfully close and he smells awfully good and she could just hold on to him **forever.**

_Everything._ She says in one breath.

And then, a curious thing happens, the tears **stop**. She wasn't expecting them to, if anything, she thought that the single word would break her heart further. But he held her and kept her as whole as she could be right now.

And then **he** spoke, murmuring the soft words into her hair and stroking her back and holding her hand.

_I know._

And, somehow, that made it all **better.** And, and she began to realize, maybe he was her _home._

**A/n: Big props to ****Curiously Cinnamon**** for liking (or knowing) the same kind of music as me. This one's for her (:**


	37. Arguing with Him

"No way," she shook her head, "no way."

"Why not?" He persisted.

"Because," she sighed, "because this is it. Because all of those raving religious lunatics are just trying to give themselves comfort to help justify their pathetic lives. Because it's obviously scientifically impossible."

"But isn't it beautiful? Isn't it poetic and romantic and all that shit to believe that there's something more?" His eyes gleamed as he leaned forward, fully engaged in the debate.

"But isn't it also terribly foolish?" Her hands waved, gesturing wildly as she spoke, "I mean, what if we just gave up hunting for an afterlife and instead focused on the present, wouldn't the world be happier? It doesn't matter; everything after life doesn't matter because it isn't real. So we should stop troubling ourselves about it and blindly hoping. We should stop."

"Rose," Scorpius murmured, leaning closer still to her. Her eyes shone wildly, her breath hitching in her throat.

"It's just, people live for the future so much we forget the present, you know? And if we're always worrying about what's going to happen after we die, then we don't really live and it was all a waste. People waste their entire lives trying to plan for tomorrow, but the tomorrows are slipping past them and the yesterdays are bogging them down and today is fading quickly, too quickly. We don't have anything but now. It's the only certainty, that we are here now. Tomorrow, we don't know what will happen, but we know now. And people throw that away to chase a silly little fantasy that we'll meet all the ones we loved then lost when we're gone, but it's not true! They're gone. They're gone, Scor, and they're not coming back. We'll never see them again. If everyone lived all of their tomorrows in a daze, there'd be nothing but dead bodies and those who mourn for them. If each grieving person in the world led the remainder of their life listless after their loss, there'd be nothing but a huge silent house and one little daughter wandering around, wondering where her daddy went and why her mommy won't cook her dinner anymore. And she'd just keep walking, that little girl, she'd keep walking and looking but her daddy's not coming back and her mother's just as bad and there's nothing more to life but living then dying and those who are haunted by the ghosts and fall in-between."

"Rosie," he repeated, pulling her into his arms. She collapsed into him, her shoulders delicately shaking with sobs. "Rosie, I didn't know, you told me everything was fine-"

"It's not fine. None of it's fine. My father's been dead for six months and my mother has yet to unlock the door to the library. She just sits in there all day, crying sometimes, or frantically researching the philosophies of the ancient greats, just trying to figure out when she'll get him back. She's forgotten me. She just sits there, eyes staring blankly ahead sometimes. She won't eat. She doesn't sleep. She cries, reads, and stares. And none of it, Scor, none of it she does involves me. I haven't just lost my dad, I lost my mom too."

He didn't say anything. Because, what really was there to say? After the accident, Rose had told him that she was depressed, as was natural, but both she and her mother were still going to live their lives fully. Her head pressed against his chest, he realized that this was an impossibility. Hermione was so preoccupied with her own woes; she didn't notice Rose wilting slowly. But, Scorpius couldn't blame her, almost, Rose's fading was gradual. He himself, her boyfriend of three years, hadn't noticed anything was wrong until her eyes sparkled unnaturally and her voice went into a high pitch and she began to cry in earnest. Call it the obliviousness of being a teenage boy, but he had honestly thought everything was getting better for her.

"He's not coming back, Scor, I faced that a long time ago. But, but I didn't think I had lost her too. I didn't think she'd stop loving me and caring for me like a mother should. I've lost her, too, Scor, I've lost her to all the tomorrows and yesterdays. The present isn't relieving her grief, so she drowns herself in the past.

"Did you know, she forgot my birthday? It was just another day in her now pointless life," Rose's voice became sharp and bitter, the resentful tone of a child denied the nurturing love they need, "she just sat there. I even went in, she didn't safeguard the door against 'Alohamora', and told her. She didn't do anything, she just sat there. I checked in on her later that night, hoping to bring her some of the birthday cake I baked for myself, and she was furiously reading. Her hair was flying everywhere and ink was smudged on her face and, Scor, I swear she looked mad. Hell, she is mad. She's mad and out of her mind and mental and completely insane and, and she's forgotten me!

"I hurt too, you know. I lost someone too. She's not the only one that lost someone but she's so selfish and she acts like it's just her burden and then she, in the mean time, makes life miserable for the rest of us. I just want my parents back, but that's not going to happen. I just want my mother to hold me and tell me it'll be alright."

"I know," he looked into her eyes, observing the flecks of gold that lit in the light of the fire, "I know I'm not your mother, but it'll all be okay, Rosie,"

And so he held her and she cried all the tears she had held back so long. She cried for her father, for herself, and even a tear or two for her poor mother, sitting in a lonely library with only dim memories for company.

"I want to believe," she whispered way later, after the candles had burned out and the moon had risen on the horizon. She was quiet as she spoke, talking as if only to herself, "I want to believe there's more, and that I'll see him again. I want to, but I can't. Because that would make me no better than her."

"So do it." He told her, cradling her close, "don't let it govern you but, why not? Why not comfort yourself with occasional memories of him and the security blanket that you'll see him soon enough."

"Scor, just don't let me be like her. Don't let me lose my tomorrows, okay?" Her voice was clear and commanding, but held a whining, pleading note.

"Rosie, I am your tomorrows, and I won't ever let you forget that."

**I'm not thrilled with the ending. Not at all. But I needed some way to make it stop…. And it's rather plotless, as are most of my oneshots, actually. I can't write anything with a real story. But the dialog almost had my crying.**

**Whatever, the self-criticism thing doesn't work. Y'all need to tell me if it sucks.**

**And a million plagues upon your house if you favorite or follow without reviewing (kidding, I'd still love you, though not as much).**


	38. Missing Him

**Boy and I are still dating. It's been more than one month. He scares me because he's so sweet and I'm NOT, I've tried to be but I can't.**

**I want to publish a book on Lulu, who'd read it? Seriously, if you show some interest I think I could have one up soon.**

**If I wrote Harry Potter I'd have gotten myself a Hogwarts letter by now. I'm still waiting, which clearly shows that I own nothing.**

**He'**s the boy making puppy-dog eyes, shining his sparkly blues only for **her**. He's devoted and love sick and _absolutely whipped. _Because she's **her** and that's everything he's ever wanted. Girl of fire and books and soso much knowledge and _laughter_, always laughter. Everywhere she goes there's brightbrightbright **light**, shining from within as she _sparkles and twinkles and smiles _soso big. He's **fallen** for the _happy _her, the girl who is always g l o w i n g. And he's so **blinded** by this luminous image, he forgets that there's much more.

**But** there is, thereisthereisthereis, because there's **always** more to a person than you could _ever _know. There's more to **her **than _bright light and dreams of being an actress and smiles spilling over_. There's thoughts of mortality, she's pensive about human nature and soso **suspicious **of the people around her. Because she knows, even if he doesn't always acknowledge, that people are **never** perfect. She's done her research, reading Hobbs' theories and _Of Mice and Men,_ and people **always** stab you in the back. And it's the ones you love, the ones you let close, that usually do it.  
He's _blissfully _ignorant, unknowing of her philosophies, so he gets closecloseclose and she **can't breathe** because this flower needs s p a c e to spread her velvet petals. And he says pretty things, wonderful words about her being _amazing and his future and lovely _and she's **scared **(she's always scared). Her heart beats, oncetwicethreetimes and she tells him to s_hut up shut up, stop talking_ because she can't **handle** all the lies he keeps spilling. But he keeps going, because he's as oblivious as ever and can't even think because her lips are cherry red and her eyes are bright. She keeps telling him, begging him, to stop before _he_ breaks (**she breaks**) this beautiful thing they have.  
**But he keeps talking.**

So she runrun_runs away_, it's all she's **ever **done. Her legs pump fastfastfaster than he could ever dream of going and, _in a flash_, she's g o n e.

But she's regretful. Who is she but a teenage girl, **a cynic **but still reader (**and believer,** _but she'd deny that_) of Romeo and Juliet? And she's only fifteen but she'd like her happily-ever-after, _pleaseandthankyou._ So she returns, **slowly** crawling towards him because she doesn't know how to say the magic words (real magic words, words that heal). _I'm sorry. _  
He's been **hurt by her**. She stung him with her flight, taking all of his dreams and devotion and grinding them into d u s t. So now **he's** the cynic, because _people don't change _and she isn't the girl he thought she was. And he doesn't take her back, because he doesn't want her to leave **again**.  
And there go her fairytale dreams, flying away into the wind like a balloon released by a child on a windy day, lazily drifting into the bright sky. And she'll _never feel that again_, she realizes, never feel her heart beat quickly for a boy. **And it's her fault.** It's all her fault. So she throws herself into studying, learning everything there is to know about everything. And she closes herself off (**more**, _if that was even possible)_ and stays farfaraway from anybody who could ever make her feel soso alone. And she is, she is a l o n e.  
She, the** pretty girl** full of smiles and laughter and _overflowing_ happiness, girl of rainbows with no rain and unending knowledge, becomes little more than a **shell.** But he's naive and innocent and foolish and _he trusts_, blindly putting his faith in another person. But it **isn't her**. It will never be her, never again, he vows. So he and Lily live soso happily-ever-after and nobody glances at Rose, the _wilting_ flower. Nobody notices as she excuses herself from the happyhappy wedding to go **cry**.

He still loves her, he could never **not** love her, so he followers her away. He catches her in his arms and they're _kissing_ and it's oh-so-perfect and she's **found** her fairytale prince because he's been here all along but he's off to marry her cousin and it's all so messed up because she's **finally** realized that _she loves him_. But he backs away and looks at her and whispers I'm sorrys to her and she finds herself fiercely mourning him even though he's standing a few feet away.

The _couple_ exchanges their I dos and that's it.** Game over.** Rosie lost her happy-ending but **Lily **got her own.

It's two months later, rain is fallfallfalling from the sky in buckets and voices are screaming to be heard over the roaring thunder. He slams the door and storms out, enough is enough. In the streets he meets the soaked figure of Rose and they're kissing and _it's almost okay_ because he and Lily aren't heandLily anymore and it's all so wonderful because they're both there and **nobody's running**. But she looks at him, breathing steadily, and shakes her head. No, she whispers, _no, I can't do that, not to Lily_. He, of course, tells her Lily's out of the picture and suddenly her body's pressed against his and they're on fire and her lips are burnburnburning his with passion he's never felt before and of course he and Lily didn't work, **Lily wasn't Rose,** and they're perfect together.

It's finally ScorpiusandRose, just like it always should have been.


	39. Why I've Been Gone

A quick update:

A month ago, debate team lost at state by .1%. The loss hurt more than anything I had ever experienced.

Two weeks ago, my boyfriend broke up with me.

Tonight, a dear friend of mine swallowed a handful of pills. She's at the hospital right now, she'll be fine.

Puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

That losing a competition felt like the greatest pain in the world until I was forced to face the prospect of losing my friend.

This is why I've been gone, but I'll come back soon. Writing is my therapy.

-Allya


	40. Shocking Him

**Long time, no see! **

**Okay, this isn't really a post. I try to make all oneshots over 1000 words and this falls a bit, okay, a lot, short. But I like its brevity, I think. Do you?**

Her touch is electric. It sends shivers racing up his spine as her small, dainty hand reaches up to his face.  
"Make a wish," she breathes, her voice soft as one delicate finger wipes away a stray eyelash. He closes his eyes for a moment, envisioning her lips pressed to his.

"All done," he whispers, their bowed heads so close that he could just lean in a little further and kiss her. But he doesn't, he never does, because, oh yeah, she's his best friend and his best mate's ex-girlfriend and this tension is completely NOT OKAY. But he doesn't move away, he's only human, after all.  
"What'd you wish for?" she inquires, holding his gaze with her brightbright blue eyes. For a moment he thinks of saying 'you' and then bending just a bit closer until the gap is gone and it's just them with no room, no air, just intense electricity.

But then he shakes his head slowly, "I heard that it doesn't come true if I tell." he murmurs playfully.  
"You're no fun," she whines, pouting. She extends her lower lip out in an impression of a puppy's begging muzzle. He grins in response, shaking his head once more. Her eyes widen with the shock of being denied, something that is very infrequent with her spoiled life. "Please?" She asks, placing one of those porcelain, elegant hands on his chest. His heart beats erratically, jumping in the cavity in his chest. He almost stops breathing for a moment, the thrill of being so, so close to her causing the air to leave his lungs. Her long fingers play with the buttons on his shirt, causing his heart rate to soar even further. "Please?" she whispers again. He shakes his head once more, not in denial to her pleas, but simply to cure the dizziness caused by holding her intense gaze.  
"N-no," he stutters. He knows it's wrong, oh Merlin is it wrong, but he's leaning closer still. He tells himself that he won't close the gap, the inch of space between their mouths, but he knows that he's absolutely powerless when it comes to her.

"Are you sure about that?" she asks, her words soft and breathy. He is pleased to hear a small quaver in her voice, happy that she's not overly-confident about what could be happening.

"Sure about what?" He questions, too busy concentrating on her hand playing with his shirt. His muddled head spins once more as he looks at her, really looks at her. From here he can see each individual freckle on her satin cheek as well as each dark eyelash from which those blue eyes, those damn blue eyes, peered up at him. There was something about eyelashes, he knew, something significant. He hadn't the faintest what it was.  
In an instant, her lips are pressed to his. He isn't sure who moved first, but she's soft and warm and she just fits, you know?

And her kiss causes sparks to light behind his closed eyes.

**Big thanks to everyone for the support. It hasn't been an easy year so far, and I needed to hear that it was going to get better. I really appreciate you guys. **

**Please review!**


	41. Living Because of Him

Her voice shook, sobs masking the usual beautiful tone of her words, "I did something bad, Scor, I did something really bad."

His heart stopped beating for a moment. He knew, he knew she had been struggling, trying so hard to stay afloat. He knew she had been failing, that she felt like she was being pulled under and swept away. He knew she had been drowning. So when she called to say she did something very bad, he knew exactly what she was going to say. The knowledge didn't stop the inevitability and hopelessness to wash over him, pounding into his gut, his head, making his knees weak and his stomach turn.

"Rosie, what did you do?" He whispered slowly, his voice not quavering once, a feat he was momentarily proud of.

"I- I- I don't want to die, Scor. I don't want to die! But I don't want to live and it all just hurt so much but there they were and I knew they'd make it better, they always make it better. I just took one, like the doctor said to, but then I took two, three, four, and then a handful. I just took them all and swallowed them and now my stomach hurts and I don't want to die. But I can't live anymore." Her words gushed out; he was unable to understand them, both shock and her sobs making it difficult for him to distinguish specific words. But he heard enough, he knew, just like he had known before, what she had done.

"Rose. Rose, listen to me, call 911. Rose, call 911 right now." He was firm, not allowing her to hear the hammering of his heart as he considered the future, a future without her.

"Okay," her voice, usually strong and definitive, was soft and complacent. She set the phone down, a soft click penetrating the speaker of his cell phone.

In the moments of her absence, he allowed himself to really feel what was happening, what she had put in place with a handful of pills and depression that went back for years. She had been having such a hard time, he knew that she had struggled with overwhelming sadness and hopelessness for over four years, he knew that once upon a time she had thought about ending it all but had decided last minute not to. He thought she was over it. No, he knew she wasn't over the loneliness and bleak outlook she had on her future, but he thought she was over trying to use death as a way out.

How cowardly she was to try to escape. She couldn't just do that; she couldn't take a handful of pills and have it all be over. Life sucked. There was no denying that. And her life sucked especially, her father dying during her first year at Hogwarts, her mother always yelling at her for trivial things, her cousins shining brighter than she could ever dream to; but she couldn't just snap her fingers and make it all stop. That's not the way things work. It's not fair for escape to be that easy. It simply wasn't fair.

Five minutes passed. Then ten, then fifteen. The phone at his side didn't ring. He waited, toes tapping, for her call. Twenty minutes after their first conversation, he dialed her number. She answered on the first ring.

"Scor?" She breathed, her voice strained with tears.

"Rosie, did you do it? Did you call?" So relieved that she had actually answered, his questions poured out of his mouth, a flood of inquires. Knowing he'd overwhelm her, he quickly shut up and waited for her response.

"I-I couldn't," her voice caught, "I called them and they answered and I didn't know what to say so I hung up the phone."

Miles away, he let a few tears fall from his eyes. She didn't tell them what she had done. They weren't coming. She was going to die. "Rosie, Rosie, you have to. You have to call them and you have to give them your address, okay?"

"I can't." She whispered, "I can't do it. I don't want them to come. I want to die. Why won't you just let me die?"

It felt like she was twisting a knife in his gut. He couldn't let her die because, because, because he couldn't live without her. Because she was light and sunshine and everything that was perfect, even when she felt so flawed. Because it wasn't right that she, such a bright promise, could extinguish so quickly in life. Because it wasn't fair that she could escape when he could never have enough courage to do it himself.

"Because you can't." He answered simply. He wanted to tell her about how most youth felt invincible, how she only felt so vulnerable because of her sadness, and that would soon pass. He wanted to tell her about what she would miss out on, a first kiss, a first love, dozens of rainbows, graduating Hogwarts, making a difference in the world. He wanted to scream that she couldn't just give up, not before she had felt real heartbreak and felt, in equal measure, real happiness.

On the other line, she sighed.

"Call them again," he urged, "call them and give them your address." There was silence from her. "Please?" he murmured. Finally, she breathed out, a whoosh of giving up.

"Okay," her voice was thick with tears, "okay, I'll call them."

"Good," he smiled slightly, "and Rosie, don't you dare think about hanging up again. I'm going to call you in five minutes, and you better answer that they're on the way. And then I'll call you in ten minutes, then twenty, then thirty. I'll keep calling you so you know I'm here, and I'll keep calling you so you can't just give up. You can't just give up." His voice cracked over the statement.

"Bye," her voice was soft again. He couldn't bring himself to say goodbye, not wanting to spoil what had been a powerful farewell with a weak, complacent one. He couldn't say goodbye because that would give her permission to make that be the last thing she heard. He wanted to make sure that, at the least, the last thing she heard was a promise that he'd keep fighting for her, even when she wanted to give up.

He called. He called five minutes later, no answer. He called ten minutes later, no answer. He called thirty minutes later, still no answer. So he called the police. He gave her name and phone number, saying he didn't know her address, and told them she had swallowed pills. They thanked him and said that they'd try to find her. Ten nail-biting minutes later, his phone rang.

"Mr. Malfoy?" A strange voice asked.

"Yes?" He hesitantly responded, trying to mask the hitch in his throat.

"You called earlier about a girl named Rose Weasley, did you not?"

He nodded quickly, but realizing they couldn't see that over the phone, answered "I did."

"Well, we have located her. An ambulance is coming her way right now."

A smile broke out on his face. An ambulance, she was going to be saved, she was going to get better! "Thank you!" He almost sung.

"No problem, Mr. Malfoy." The person on the other end seemed to smile. The line clicked as they hung up.

He called her a few more times, she didn't answer. Worn out from worry, he decided to get some rest and resume mentally beating himself up for not doing something sooner tomorrow. Just as his eyes were drifting to a close, the phone buzzed. Groggily, he answered.

"Hello?" His voice was heavy with sleep.

"Hi!" She responded, overly chipper. "I'm at the hospital. They gave me some charcoal so I would puke, it tasted gross."

"Oh," he yawned, looking at his watch. It was two in the morning. "That's nice."

"They won't let me have any pens so I can draw. I promised I wouldn't eat the ink to die, or whatever, but they still won't give any to me. I'm bored!" He chuckled a bit, shocked at how quickly she transformed. He knew she had been told by her therapist that she was bi-polar, but it was quite something else when he witnessed the change.

"Why don't you sleep now?" He suggested, "and draw in the morning?"

"Okay," she agreed, yawning belatedly after his.

"Rose," he became serious for a moment, praying that she'd really listen to what he had to say, "promise me you'll never do something like this again. Promise me that no matter how terrible you feel, you'll call me before taking pills, or hanging yourself, or slitting your wrists. Promise me you'll talk first, to me if not anybody else."

She sobered up, her joking tone fading away to reveal a small, scared teenage girl who felt as though the world was crushing down on her shoulders. "I can't do that, Scor, you know I can't do that."

And he did know, and that was precisely why he was so scared. "At least try?" He finally consented.

"Okay, will do, Scor." She smiled sadly, the silly grin long gone but the scars on her arms still remaining.

"I love you," he whispered, "don't forget that."

"I won't." She replied, and the line clicked dead once more. With a sigh, he brushed a few tears off his cheeks and went to bed.

**You know how I said that my friend tried to commit suicide? Well here's the story! Of course, I'm Scorpius and she's Rose. A lot of the dialog is word for word, I wrote some down right after I found out she was okay. She's out of the hospital and back home now, but hasn't returned my calls for a few days, so I'm worried.**

**For those that think (because I know some will) that her shift in mood was too dramatic, it's how it happened. About an hour, maybe two, after she went to the hospital, she cheerfully called me to whine about her boredom because she wasn't allowed pens. So there. It is realistic.**

**-Allya**

**P.S. Reviews make me smile like an idiot. Please write me one!**

**P.P.S. The word count is 1785. This makes up for the last short one, right?**

**P.P.P.S. My entire memory of the night is consumed by the "it's not fair" paragraph. I felt that it simply wasn't FAIR for her to die when I could never have the courage to end it. It wasn't FAIR that she was going to do this cowardly thing. That sounds mighty selfish, but it's how I felt.**


	42. Realizing Him

**I'm trying out a new style here, be patient with me. Yes, I know the tense changes around. I wanted all the action to be present tense, so it's all happening and blurring together right before your eyes; while the dialogue is past tense, so it's more… clear? I figured the speech draws these harsh lines that contrast with the setting and mood, and to up that I played with tenses. Don't kill me, okay? Just let me know what you think.**

She needs this one drink, this one night of drunken partying and flings she knows she'll regret. She needs this short hem-line and these heels that tower too, too tall. She needs the laughter, the music, and the boys whose names she'll only know for the night. She needs the alcohol burn down her throat because she needs, more than anything in the entire world, to make the silence feel okay.

The music is pounding and her head is throbbing. The club's lights change colors so quickly her mind whirs, but she ignores the dizziness and, instead, throws back another shot paid for by some blond guy whose face she couldn't pick out of a crowd if her life depended on it.

A voice, low and sultry in her ear, requests a dance. Happily, she takes his hand and bounces towards the glowing floor, grinning in anticipation of the sensation of losing herself for a little while. Yes, this is just what she wants, what she needs. One night of no strings attached fun to clear her head.

She stumbles towards his bedroom, gripping his arm tightly as her towering heels threaten to bring her down. At the threshold, she kicks them off in a fight of impatience, giggling as the black shiny shoes go flying. He pulls her in for a sloppy kiss and she responds enthusiastically. Her night is a watercolor of slurred words and drunken clumsiness as the two, in their lusty embrace, knock over an expensive looking lamp.  
"Whoops," she giggles.  
The stranger smiles down at her and their lips meet again, crushing together with impulsiveness spurred by a few drinks too many.

She wakes up in the morning, head throbbing, to the fierce sunlight streaming in from a window in a room that isn't familiar. With a horror and a small degree of well hidden pride, she notices that she is very unclothed and very wrapped around a stranger with hair the color of straw. And then more horror ensues as she slowly begins to recognize her bedfellow. No, this was not what she wanted; she had no intention of climbing into the bed of a man she knew. And immediately she recognizes that there is no way, no possible way, that this fun came along with no strings. Because, lying next to her was no man that she met the night before, no, it was Scorpius Malfoy. Her eyes narrowed in disgust, not at him, but at herself for having been so absorbed in becoming euphoria that she had neglected to notice that she was sleeping with her cousin's best friend.  
"Oh shit," she eloquently muttered.  
"You're awake." He noticed. There was no feeling in his voice, nothing that indicated whether or not he regretted their night spent tangled in his sheets.  
"So," she started, but she didn't bother to continue. In truth, she had absolutely nothing to say aside from: what the hell do we do now?  
"So," he repeated.  
"It was one night." She told him, eyes wide and praying that he'd accept her explanation. "One night. We both screwed up, we were drunk, we didn't know."  
"I wasn't that drunk," he said, matter-of-factly. Her jaw dropped a little.  
"So you knew?" She raged, "you recognized me and chose this?"  
"Rose," he muttered, coloring in a strange mix of shame and fury, "I've fancied you since third year. You were willingly going to my bed; there was no way I'd say no."

She sighs because he's right, but his correctness ruins her memory of the fun from last night, he casts a dark shadow on all that throwing caution to the wind that she had done. Because this was supposed to be her letting go, her breaking away from her chains just for one night for some entertainment she'd never remember. This wasn't supposed to be her making more of a mess of things than she already had. She ruined everything.

He's just the boy who her father pointed out on the first day of school, the boy she was warned to stay away from and did. He's just her little cousin's best friend so he's over at the house so, so often. He's just a shadow in her life, a glimpse of an adoring smile as she ushers in a new boyfriend through the entryway to show off to her family. And yeah, she's known for a while that he fancied her, but she paid no heed to it. He was just a sliver of darkness, and she, she was a burning sun. 

"Really?" She asked softly, not daring to raise her voice any louder than the quiet exhaled breath he let out. "Third year?"

"Yeah," he confirmed, still turned away from her. Suddenly, the back of his head became so incredibly interesting. She searched it, looking for any indication of what was passing through his skull.

What had she been doing in third year? Snogging some boy senseless in a boom cupboard, no doubt. Wait no, she thinks with a petulant frown, no. Third year was before Matt. Before she stopped taking it all so seriously. Third year was when she actually believed in love.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. And all of a sudden there are tears in her eyes and her breath is hitching in her throat and how the hell was she so blind?

"Me too." He told her, turning just a few degrees towards the left so that she could see a sliver of his profile.

And it all flashes before her eyes, the adoring looks, the mysterious flowers, his excuses to talk to her about the potions homework when they both knew he had already finished it. The boy, the meek boy who hid behind the bright spotlight placed on his best friend and her cousin, he loved her. And she was the idiot, the dolt, the git; not him.

But then she's walking to his side and her arms, alien limbs moving without her direction, are wrapping themselves around his waist and she's burying her head in his back and this is intimacy so much closer than the night they just shared. She breathes out, not sure if she's daring enough to inhale and then exhale the words that are running through her mind.

"Give me another chance." There. Her voice wavered not once as her mind reeled. She had no clue what she was asking for, having not engaged in a serious relationship since fourth year, since him, Matt. The boy who she held, Scorpius, stayed silent. "Just let me try. You, you waited for me. I'm here. Give me a chance to love you."

She never thought she could love again, let alone plead for the honor of putting herself out there to be broken, but he looks so melancholy and he's waited so long for her and her head is spinning because he smells like honey and cream and caramel and broomstick polish. He turns to face her, she finds herself looking up to meet his stormy eyes.

"I never dreamed I'd hear you say that," he choked out and emotion rose him her throat while her cheeks furiously colored under his intense gaze.

But then she can't think anymore because he's pressing his mouth to hers and he tastes like summer and freedom and this, this is perfection. Maybe he's a commitment, not the no strings attached fun she had originally expected, but when the boy tastes just like her Amortentia's always smelt, she knows they're a match made in heaven.

She needs this one kiss, nothing more, to fall into dizzying excitement complete with weak knees and a light as air head. She needs him pressed against her, the feel of his skin hot against her flesh between the thin layers of clothing they are each wearing. She needs him, more than anything in the entire world, to remind her that the silence is gone and music reigns loud and happy, like tolling bells, above the couple.

** So what do you think? I'm actually quite in love with it. I know the tense switching around is weird, but I think it paints a spooky, watercolor effect. And I love writing in both tenses, but hate using present for dialogue, so this kind of just happened. **

**Aside from that, is this happy ending-y enough for you, oh loyal readers?**

**If you like this enough to alert or favorite, please don't forget to review!**


	43. Blowing Him Away

**Yes, I've been gone a while. Know why? Because I've started a new one shots series! I'm a bit done with Rose and Scor for now, I want to try new couples and have some practice with the different children of heroes. It's all romances still, I know what I'm able to write, and it's all next-gen. Give it a read? The series title is 'This Lonesome Sun'. I'd really appreciate you switching over, as this may be the last Scor/Rose for a while. As in, a really, really long time. Really, I won't write more of them until I've gone through most of the other next-gen couples. So go read Lonesome! **

_And you smell like thunder_

_Though you've barely spoken_

-Gravity, Sarah Barielles

She's a storm. Blazing through life with an attitude fierier than her hair, and that's saying something. She's all sarcastic smirks and honey voiced pleas- won't you stay, just for one night- and making anyone and everyone fall in love with her. He plays his part well, melting into a gooey puddle at her feet whenever she flashes him a brighter than the sun smile.

She's troubled, oh yes, but no one close to her ever notices (or cares, maybe) because the eye of the hurricane is always the calmest.

He's, well, he's so very him. A blend of quietly voiced opinions and silent disagreement to make him so very Huffelpuff. She thinks he's bland, but she'd never tell him that to his face because then he'd fall out of her spell. He's too quiet sometimes, and he knows it, but he's not good at stirring things up, so instead he stands in the background and waits for the wind to stop howling. But, while he follows the hurricane girl, the wind is always fierce and he is never never, not ever, at peace.

"Hey there," she grins at him, letting her luminescence blind him temporarily. She sees the stars in his eyes, notices the way his gaze lingers on her plush lips and just for a little extra tease, she rubs them together slowly. He wets his own mouth in response and her smile grows, ferocious and predatory, though he'd never admit to seeing it like that.

Eyes downcast and a blush coloring his freckled cheeks, he murmurs, "hi," in a voice smaller than a mouse. Because she's the wind and the storm and everything so fiercely beautiful it steals his breath away, and he's nothing more than a few raindrops after the main event.

"So, what's up?" She maneuvers herself next to him, casually throwing an arm over his shoulder. Every bit of skin that makes contact with her lean arm burns as though a leaping fire has grazed it. He doesn't move.

"The sky," he responds, emboldened by her flirtatious move. He's still a little quiet, but at least he's talking, she figures.

She throws her head back and laughs. The sound is too loud, too jarring, next to his near-silent statement, but she knows that he lights up when she laughs, so she continues to make the musical sound far past her initial amusement at the joke. In all reality, she's heard it countless times, but she needs to encourage the boy, bait him so he keeps following her. "Really, though," she questions after a lengthy pause, "what's up?"

The light from the blazing fire, the one at the fireplace, not the one in her eyes, distracts him for a moment. The crackling is the only noise, save for the breathing of the silent pair. After a long pause that feels like an eternity but is actually less than a minute, he responses, "just thinking."

Her eyes widen. All of her pervious toys -by toys, she means boys, of course- didn't ever think, or never admitted to it, at least. But here he was, the bland, nothing of a boy, sitting in a pensive silence. It was intriguing. "About what?" She questions lightly.

"Everything.," He says quickly, "nothing," he adds a second later. "You." He finally settles on.

"What about me?" She asks coyly. Honestly curious, she finds herself leaning forward in her chair, awaiting his answer with something that surpasses a mild wanting to know.

"How you," he pauses, looking for just the right word. Nothing seems quite perfect, "are so, so _you_," and he knows that it makes no sense but he honestly can't think of a better way to describe her.

"And what am I?" she says, the question hanging heavily in the air, "because, seriously, if you could tell me it'd make my day. What the hell am I?" And for some reason she's leaning forward and biting her lip, a habit she has always used –in private- to prevent the fall of tears. Her entire body seems to sag, her shoulders hunch over as her back arches. The melancholy position is complete with the quick rise and fall of her chest, the prelude to sobs.

He can't think of a response, and maybe she doesn't need one. She's perfect, but she would never like hearing that; she's a fire, blazing so bright but that doesn't seem quite right; she's lightening, electrifying, but in a smoother way. "A storm," he tells her. Her brows furrow with confusion. He is an admiring follower, a star-struck little nothing of a boy. She expected to hear him toss out a word like 'angelic' or 'incredible' or even 'beautiful', but _storm?_

"What does that mean?" she tilts her chin up in the dim light, allowing her skin to absorb the fire's dancing warmth.

"It means," he chooses his words carefully, "that you are beautiful and incredible and a force of nature. It means that everything you do, everything you are, is so much bigger than life, and in that overshadowing, so much more perfect too."

She glances up at him, eyes wet with tears that she refuses to let fall. "What it means," she says sternly, "is that I rip everything to shreds. That I destroy it all, bad and good alike. It means that I am admired for this destruction, and watched for this demolition. It means that I am terrible."

He says nothing, and the word just hangs in the air, practically tangible. She blushes, mentally cursing herself for revealing so much to someone who means so little.

"I don't think you're terrible," he finally tells her, "I actually think you're quite wonderful." But this isn't enough, and he and she both know it.

She glances over at the boy, his build small and his hair wispy, and sees not an ounce of perfection. He isn't groomed and tailored into the perfect, cookie-cutter boy-friend. He doesn't know all the right things to say, all the right moves to make. She curses him for this, eyes flashing in momentary anger because she's never felt this right with someone, and it could never be more wrong. Maybe if he was more muscular, or more blond, or just a little more of anything really, she and him could lean in right now and he could make her feel better with a small kiss. But he's not more, he's just so much less than everything and everyone that surrounds her, and even though she's swept him off his feet, she gets up and walks away.

Because she's a storm, and she's loud and she's beautiful and she's so, so very _her_ and he's, he's not.

_**a/n**__: Just review. Do it. And go read 'This Lonesome Sun'. BUT REVIEW FIRST._


	44. Trusting Him

**a/n:** here's the bare bones of my break-up back in February. It's still effecting me in really, really bad ways. I think my whole mentality involving love and trust will prevent me from having a successful relationship for years to come. Joy.

She thinks, she thinks, she thinks she thinks too much, but she's not quite sure what to do about it because when he leans in close, eyes bright with genuine excitement, she can't help but analyze every little thing about the way that he's holding his head and folding his hands and quirking his mouth. And it's driving her insane. All of it is, not just her own frustration with her mind, but also with her lungs (for contracting too frequently when he's around, resulting in an elevated breathing rate), and her heart (for palpitating so violently she's almost positive the noise is loud enough to be heard by his ear), and her hands (for trembling so violently that she's positive, absolutely positive, he can feel the vibrations through the air). And she's just **angry**, with herself, mostly.

And he's angry with her too. Because she's over-thinking everything and not just letting herself go, letting herself fall. All she needs to do is fall, and he'll catch her, he promises. But she's holding back and it's ruining this fragile delicate balance that makes them work. They've been told too many times to count that they couldn't, they shouldn't, they can't, **they won't work** and he's always shrugged it off because that's wrongwrongwrong, and see? They're so madly in love the rest of it doesn't matter. But that doesn't hold true anymore, and maybe it never did. And he's angry because he's given her everything and she won't take it, and she's going to prove them all right.

They're sitting, just sitting, and he leans in a little closer to her. He can't help it, there are stars in his eyes and they radiate from her, her, her, he just needs to be close to her. He believes in all that silly mumbo jumbo about love, they foolishness she scorns as make-believe. And how can he not? She's here and she looks so delicate and unearthly, angelic, that he can't help but think that there is love and this, she, is it. And there are these words that are shimmering into existence and he simply must say them.

"I love you."

She takes a deep breath, the cold air feeling like a spike being driven down her throat. She reaches a trembling hand out to touch him, caress him, push him away- but she can't choose just one sentiment, so it falls back limply to her side.

And then he has another thought, five more words that are just as pressing as the previous ones. But these, this time, he's never uttered, and never dreamed of uttering to her.

"I can't do this anymore,"

She gasps. "What about this?" She asks, her voice agitated. She knows that she's been a bad girlfriend, that she should be there for him- emotionally and physically- more often. But she couldn't and she can't and she had really thought that maybe, somehow, he understood.

"Any of it, Ro," he whispers, "I can't keep loving you like this when you don't love me."

"I do, though!" she hisses, but the actual words themselves won't leave her mouth. She can't lie to him anymore than she is currently doing, she couldn't live with herself if she did.

"Than say it," he demands. He waits for a moment, then two, then three, before jerking away from her sharply, "see." He says with bitter satisfaction, "I told you. You don't love me,"

She wishes she were crying right now, that tears would wash the regret from her eyes and make it tangible to him. But she isn't, she's devoid of tears, and, aside from a sinking in her stomach, emotion. She wishes that she were passionate, that she'd scream and yell and pull his arm to make him stay. She wishes she weren't trapped in this body, in this mind.

"Do you think you ever could?" He asks, because he can't just leave her. He can't! She's sunshine and books and boundless energy and sometimes quiet pensiveness. And he's loved her far too long to let her go without a fight, even though he can't hold on anymore. It's paradoxal, but so is their relationship.

Her voice becomes a small mouse, so quietquietquiet that it could slip out the gap of a door and scamper away, "I don't know."

He shakes his head, "and that's not enough anymore, not for me."

"Listen to me!" her voice rises, and she desperately feels like she needs to make him understand, "I don't think I believe in love," she knows he objects to this, but she raises her small hand to continue, "or at least not for me. People always leave, Scor, they always leave me. And I can't get too attached because then they walk out of my life and I'm left with nothing. I can't rebuild myself from nothing again, Scor, I can't take that again. I can't love you because loving you is trusting you and trusting you is giving you everything and I can't do that because then I'll have nothing when you leave. I can't love you because you'll leave me eventually."

Inside she feels numb. The words, after leaving her mouth in an uncontrolled flurry, deflate her chest. Tears aren't pricking at her eyes, and she really wishes they would because she can't help but think that tears would add to the sincerity of this speech. Maybe if she were to cry over him, he wouldn't leave her. But she can't summon a single, measly tear.

"You'd just have to trust that I won't." He says, like it's that simple. But it isn't, it isn't, it isn't! And why won't he just understand that there's more to it than just that, or maybe there isn't, but she just can't do it again? She can't be nothing again, and maybe it'd be too melodramatic to tell him what would happen if she was, so she doesn't say it; but she does think about it, about life as a shell and the eventual death she'd face at her own hands just because she needed to feel something, but she couldn't because he'd take all of her feelings too when he left.

"And I can't do that," she tells him because she can't stand lying.

"Could you ever?" He asks, desperate to give her a chance to make him stay.

"I don't know," she says, eyes downcast.

He stands up, "well I guess this is goodbye, then," and he hopesprays**needs** her to say that no, it isn't, and it can't be, and won't he please stay with her? But she stays silent.

So he leaves.

He leaves her.

And that, she thinks bitterly, is why she couldn't trust him to stay. Because people always leave. It's ironic, though, that he left because she couldn't believe that he wouldn't. He proved her right and himself wrong and destroyed both of them and this would kill her, if she weren't so numb already.

What did she want? She asks herself, knowing that she had set up the conversation for his departure, that she could have prevented him from leaving just by telling him not to. But she didn't. Why?

Because she needed him to fight for her, to prove that it was okay for her to hold on to herself. She needed him to prove that she could trust him to stay no matter what. And, maybe, if he had stayed then, she'd one day be able to know that he'd stay always. But he left, and it had never hurt so much to be proven right.

People always leave, you know, and he was no exception.

**a/n: **Please, please, please review!


	45. Tell Him

**a/n**: I look forward to more writing time over the summer. It's exciting to actually have time to do necessary stuff like sleeping and eating and breathing.

She looks at him and knows, just knows, that she's not afraid. It's a curious feeling, having no fear, especially for one as comparatively young and cowardly as she. She's always been afraid, afraid that the multitudes of people surrounding her will tire of her quirks, afraid that she just can't be normal, afraid that nobody could ever love her because she can't love herself and she can't love other people. She never thought she could love other people, but she thinks she might love him.

It's just because he'll put his arms around her, scoop her up into a tight hug, and she'll feel like she's flying and she's grounded, like she's dizzy and clearheaded, and a whole mess of other contradictions that shouldn't make sense but do. And oh, do they. It's something about the way he talks to her, conversations about politics and stupid jokes and sports and the rain, that makes her feel like she could talk to him forever and never, not ever, run out of things to say. It's his sparkling eyes and the way he makes her laugh and how he lights up with passion when she mentions a subject near and dear to his heart.

She thinks she might love him, and it doesn't terrify her. Not one bit. In the past she was scared beyond belief of giving her heart away, she didn't want it to break, no, shatter, into a million pieces- to become irreparably broken. She has not one doubt in her mind, he wouldn't do that, not to her.

He tells her about base jumping and playing the mandolin and traveling to South America and she's astonished because he's so open to seeing the world, so light and free without fear, and she's always been hesitant. He makes her reckless, his words drunken her until she thinks that she might float away and try parachuting, or something equally stupid.

"It's like being hit by a car- but for fun!" He exclaims, his wide blue eyes focused on her, only her. It's the two of them out in the drizzling weather of London, their fourth year just finished. Before they parted for the holidays, he ruffled her hair and said "see you soon, Strawberry," which left her blushing for hours and wondering for days- was this a date?

The only fault she finds with him, hidden oh-so carefully among his many perfections, is his lack of clarity. She feels like she's hovering along this thin line, he treats her as much more than a friend and just a fraction less than a girlfriend. It's frustrating. Not knowing, not knowing what this is and what they're doing and where it's all headed, is killing her slowly. She shakes her head slowly to clear the cobwebs of doubt from her mind.

"You're unbelievable," she says with a faint smile, in all actuality, she missed the previous comment for her thinking, but the trend of the conversation assure her that this is an appropriate response. He grins cheekily and she knows that she's said the right thing.

"I try," his grin is infectious, and she's smiling now because she can't help but smile when he's around. He just does that to her. It's funny, too, she thinks, because he only knows her as this happy, smiley girl. He doesn't know anything about the tears and starvation and inadequacy, because he only sees bubbly perfection.

"That's enough about me," he says, "tell me something about you,"

This is her chance, she could tell him that she loves, no, likes him; she could tell him about how much the number on the scale dictates her life; she could tell him that she's not afraid anymore, and that's never been the case for her.

"When I was little, I had a washcloth. Called Lovey. You know how other kids had blankets and stuffed toys and such? Well I had my washcloth. I carried it everywhere with me, it was yellow and so worn through that you can see straight through! I had it from the time I was four until the time I was ten." She informs him with a smirk and twinkling eyes. She may not be afraid, but she's not particularly brave, either.

"You're kidding." He says, eyes wide with shock.

"Nope, swear on my life." The story's true, Lovey the washcloth is currently residing on her nightstand, right under the book she's currently devouring; but it wasn't what she wished she would've said. Summoning all of her courage, she looks him in the eye to continue, "can I tell you something else about me?"

He nods.

"Well, I like you. And I don't want to ruin our friendship or make it weird or anything, but I like you and I can't go into holiday feeling like this." The words are gushing out of her mouth and she'd like to take them back, but she wouldn't if she could because this is the right thing to do, she knows it. "I can't keep thinking about you if it's worth nothing, anyway."

He opens his mouth and she thinks that he might say he likes her too, or better, he loves her, or how could she ever think she was worthy of him? But instead he just says "um." She doesn't vocalize a response. "Well," he continues after a moment of thought, "Lyla actually told me this awhile ago and I thought about it and I can't ruin our friendship. That's happened to me in the past. It's not because I don't like you, you're hilarious and so damn smart, but I don't want to mess up what we have. Sorry."

"Oh it's fine," she says lightly, but inside she feels like crumbling, likes she's falling apart and she doesn't know how to pick up the pieces, "I just needed to get it out."

"Feel better?" He asks and she thinks she might slap him, but she won't because she's Rose Weasley and she doesn't cause scenes.

"Yeah," she responds with a smile that's just a touch too bright to be genuine. He doesn't notice.

"Good," he says awkwardly. She makes a polite excuse and leaves him.

He led her on. He made her feel like she was special, he even knew she liked him, and he had no intention of dating her. He led her on. He hurt her, no, he shattered her. She thinks that all of her seams are coming loose and she might unravel into a pile of threads and stained fabric. He led her on.

She feels very not fine, not better at all, but the next time she sees him, she knows that she'll give him a bright smile. She may not be brave, but she's far too proud to appear broken.

As she retreats, a tear falls down her cheek. A crystal, slowing slithering down her freckled skin. She impatiently wipes it away and keeps walking- no, she won't let anyone see that she's broken.

**A/N:** Yay! My love life sucks! An uncomfortable amount of this is true. The confession and the reaction are pretty dang word for word.

But I'm okay, I'm moving on.

Review, though, please! Make my day.


	46. Calling Him

**a/n: Not sure where this came from. Bits and pieces are from my day to day life, but a lot of it is just my imaginings. **

**It's a different sort of style for me, relying on dialog instead of more prose-y writing. I don't know how I feel about it.**

"Pickup the goddamn phone, Scorpius," She hisses, her lips tight next to the old fashioned, curly corded, banana yellow telephone, "just fucking answer."

He hears his phone ring, a shrill shriek that calls his attention away from the newspaper in his hands. A beep sounds for the both of them and he can hear her voice loud and clear as it is recorded by the small box in his kitchen.

"Answer." She commands. He doesn't move. "Pickup." She whispers. And then, so soft that he almost misses it, "please."

He half-rises from his seat, arm stretched out, but then falls back. No.

"I'll keep calling," her voice threatens, the speaker making it sound sharp. A tone sounds, indicating that she has no more time to leave a message. He hears a soft click, and breathes a sigh of relief. He doesn't have to choose whether or not to talk to her, the choice has already been made by her forced hanging up. But the dreaded ring of the telephone sounds a moment later, the perfect amount of time for her quick, slim fingers to spin the dial in order to reach him once more.

He lets it go to voicemail. Again.

"Scor," she whispers.

She's crying. She's sitting on the cold floor of the kitchen, phone pressed to her ear with a manic desperation, knees bent tight to her chest, crying. And she never cries. If Rose Weasley is anything, it's strong. Tears are for the weak, and she's always been the type to hold her chin up and stop her lips from quivering with a sharp jab of a manicured fingernail into the tender skin of her pale wrist.

He can hear her tears. He tries to tell himself that he doesn't care, no, not one bit.

"Scor. It's happening. I need you. Please, please answer." But he doesn't because he can't because he's Scorpius Malfoy and that's all there is to it.

"I just feel alone. All the time, I feel like there's no one listening, even though I'm screaming so loudly. I feel like no one cares, like I'm drowning at a crowded beach and nobody even blinks an eye because I'm so far underwater, anyway, and who wants to rescue a girl that'll just throw herself back under?

"I got my scores from my OWLs today. Mum flipped shit, I swear, that woman is batshit crazy. I got an O in creative writing, but an A in arithmetic. A's aren't good enough for her, she told me that at the start of the term. I tried so hard, Scor. I studied and slaved over my books but I just don't get arithmetic and, no matter how much time I spent on it, I couldn't do it.

"I failed, Scor, I'm a failure.

"She makes sure that I know it, too. It's like there's these two demons. You're fat, one hisses. You're stupid, says the other. A train wreck, nobody will ever love you, moron, pig, slut, whore, no matter what you do- you'll fail. Give up, they both say, if you can't fucking try any harder. Starve. Study. Eat less. Read less. Write less. Smile less, nobody cares if you're happy, anyways.

"One's in my head, Scor, and the other's my mum." She heaves a large sigh. He can almost see the expression on her face, the way her features all crumple inwards when she's upset. Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen. The way he pictures her, her head is cradled in her hands, too tired to keep ram-rod straight anymore.

"I'm terrified, Scor, because I feel like I'm on the edge of this cliff and everyone's chanting "jump" and I don't want to fall but maybe I do because standing here is unimaginably painful and falling would be nothing. What would it feel like to tie stones to my ankles and wade in the ocean? At least I wouldn't be disappointing anybody any longer.

"I need you. I need you here with me now because I can't stop thinking about the rope in my closet and how it'd feel tied around my neck. I need you here because I know that all this is so terribly bad, but I don't know how to stop it from the inside."

Every piece of him is burning. Rose. Rose. Rose, with tangled hair, pumping her legs back and forth on a swing. A sunshine laugh and ocean eyes, her hand slipping into his. Shimmering skin, lips meeting and fireworks exploding. Stars and seashells and cinnamon scented hair. And she's so real; it's almost as if she's in front of him now. Rose.

He picks up the phone, but the click is inaudible against her choking breaths. He doesn't speak, can't speak, and she doesn't realize that he's there.

"I'm sorry." She pleads, voice defeated, "I don't know what I was thinking. I don't have an excuse, there is no excuse. I just needed someone beside me and he was there. He told me I was beautiful, and you had lately been so distant and I needed to hear those words because I felt so damn ugly."

"You could never be ugly," he whispers, and she exhales quickly in shock. He picked up the phone. He cares. He loves her. He loves her! "Rosie, what's in your hand?" And the question is so him, because he's always been able to see her, even when she wasn't there.

"The chef's knife from the drawer," she confesses tearfully.

"Put it down," he commands.

"I love you," she whispers, voice shaking.

"Put it down," he repeats, feet traveling over the same pathway as always, pacing back and forth with exasperation and worry and pity and something else, something he can't quite identify.

He hears a distinctive clink, "good," he soothes.

"I'm sorry," she sobs. If it wasn't her, if it were any other girl, he'd explode. Sorry isn't good enough and sorry doesn't make up for what she did and she can't just make everything better with a simple word. But she's Rose Weasley, and he just takes a deep breath.

"I know," and a click penetrates the air in her small kitchen. She falls to her side, the weight of him hanging up bowling her ever and leaving her gasping for breath.

It's all he could do, and he can't be angry at himself for that, he tries to reassure himself. The girl's a train wreck, and it's not his fault for jumping off the tracks. He doesn't need to be taken down with her, it's enough that she'll be going up in flames. So he took away the matches, but that was just tonight. Tomorrow these venomous thoughts will invade her head and she'll start this again. And he can't do this every day, day in and day out, forever. He's done his part. He can't be Superman every time.

The phone rings, its cry cut off abruptly as a hand lifts it off the receiver, "I love you,"

She smiles a small, but genuine smile. He does care.

Maybe he can't always save her, but he has to try. Because she's Rose and he's Scorpius and that's just what they do.

**a/n: Please, purdy please review! It helps remind me to update much faster!**


	47. Being Figured Out by Him

**A/N: Don't say I don't listen to you all. On one of the worst nights I've ever had, too, and I managed to get this out for you.**

"This night, Ro," he sighs, collapsing into a chair. The tan leather swallows him, it's worn fabric accommodating his body as he folds into it and himself, "has been bloody impossible."

"Oh?" She remarks, glancing up at him quickly from her stack of books. Littered around her work space, thousands of words plucked from nowhere and then discarded onto the floor in the form of crumpled paper and frustrated ink smears.

"Yeah. Impossible." It's as if he can't get a deep breath. She's sitting three feet away, her chair artfully angled to face his while still providing a surface to write on.

"Do you want to, you know, talk about it?" Her words are awkward and forced. She's busy. She doesn't want to hear. She should work. She should sleep. She should get far away from him before she does something stupid like falling in love.

"No." He says quickly, and that's that. Silence reigns over the pair as each become so tangled in their own thoughts that the sound of the crackling fire fades from their consciousness and nothing but a hundred wishes that'll never come true remains. Could've beens and should've beens dominate their every regret, the desires so intense that they're almost tangible.

She wants him, every piece of him. She wants his perfectly combed hair and his neatly pressed slacks and his impeccably knotted tie. She wants the look in his eyes when he first wakes up in the morning, still bleary with sleep, and the smile he gives that

outshines all the lanterns in the Great Hall- combined. She wants him, just the way he is.

He wants everything he's not. He wants messy amber hair and sparkly,

mischievous hazel eyes and clothing that looks lived in, lightly wrinkled like the wearer doesn't have enough of a care in the world to press it all flat. He wants jet black hair in his fingers, the ebony skin of her body pressed close to his. He wants kisses stolen at unmentionable hours from a girl that's so wrong it's right. He wants imperfection, jagged edges and scars, because her dark eyes skip over his cookie cutter persona. They instead focus on rumpled shirts and unbrushed hair and the son of a hero, not a villain.

"Is this about," she says softly, trying not to upset him, "Denise?" And it's as if all the air has left his body in one big gust. He deflates and she feels a strange satisfaction. She knows him that well to figure out what's wrong, and even though he hurts now, she's convinced that he'll see the merits of being with the girl who always listens and he'll realize that he's madly in love with her. A girl can dream, she thinks with a sigh.

"Your cousin had her pinned against a wall by the dungeons, slobbering on her face with such vigor that he almost crushed her!" Flames jump to his eyes, the passionate tone a far cry from the usual dry quality to his voice.

"Don't," she starts, a lump forming in her throat and her delicate, bird like hands beginning to shake, "blame this all on James."

"Well who the bloody else's fault is it?" He roars, "he's the one practically fucking her right in the hall!"

"It's her fault too, Scopius," her voice is a low hiss, "she choose to make out with him. James may be an arsehole, but he's not a rapist. And it's your fault, also, because you never fucking told her that you wanted her. You can't be angry just because she's with someone else, physically or emotionally, when you didn't even tell her in the first place that you wanted her. She's not fucking physic, Scor, and she's not going to just do nothing in the meantime, she's not going to wait for you when she doesn't even know that you're coming. And you can't blame her for going off and trying to find someone else to make her happy. You might be perfect for her, but you're not perfect and neither is he and you have to know that and you have to tell him that you love him because otherwise he'll fall in love with someone else and you'll be alone."

He's silent for a moment, her heated outburst stealing the words from his lips.

"Ro, I might not be physic, as you pointed out, but I don't think that that was supposed to be for me. Because, erm, I don't like a 'him', and I don't plan on telling said 'him' that I love him. So, do you want to, you know, tell me what all that was about?"

She reddens, the blush seeping over her cheeks, at the realization of her error. "It was a slip of the tongue, Scorpius," she says with venom, "I'm tired. I'm going to bed now."

She hangs her head down, hunching to collect all the books and spare pieces of parchment that litter the floor around her chair. Tears of embarrassment and frustration fall down her cheeks, leaving shining tracks that he catches glimmers of in the candlelight.

"Rose," he murmurs her name. It sounds new now rolling off his tongue, like music. It sounds like summer days and swinging under a great big tree and eating an orange popsicle. It sounds like sticky hands and chubby fingers and the golden light of the sun. It sounds like an orchestra of violins, the most beautifully composed song that crescendos until this pivotal moment and then stops. It sounds like her.

She hears the way he sings the single syllable. She thinks that she imagined the sound, and the small inhalation of breath immediately following. She can't take it any more, she can't take the way that she can't trust her mind when he's near. With a final stretch for a far-away piece of parchment, she gathers up the final books and turns to leave for her dormitory and the safety of her four-poster bed.

"Wait," he speaks loudly, ensuring that she'll hear his command. And it is a command, the word isn't a plea. She stops. "Rose, do you love me?"

"Of course, you're like my best friend. I mean, you're like a brother to me, but a better brother than Hugo-" She stays facing the far wall.

"That's not what I mean, Rose, and you know it. Do you love me?"

For a heartbeat it's silent. Neither moves or breathes. And then, in the quietest voice he's ever heard from her, she whispers, "it doesn't matter anyway."

She drops her books and flees from the room, the air cold on her face and hot in her lungs. She dashes for the stairs, unable to face more humiliation from the boy who she's spent countless hours with just staring at the clouds in the sky, the boy who takes her breath away without even realizing what he's stealing.

"But it does," he says, but his voice is too soft against the echoing of her rushing footsteps. And then louder, "it does matter." She stops, frozen as if glued to her spot, halfway up the staircase to the girls' dormitory.

"Not in the way I need it to," she murmurs, and her melancholy tones travel to his ears and make him want to take her in his arms and shield her from all the pain.

"Rose Minerva Weasley, it does matter because I think I might love you too." She stays still, as if petrified, "please come down here."

Her feet obey because her mind is too busy working out what's going on. He's Scorpius Malfoy, the boy in love with a girl who only falls for rebels. He's always clean-shaven. He got straight Os on his OWLs. He smells like pine trees and smoke. When he looks at the stars, his face lights up. His body fits against hers like they were made to be pressed together. And before she knows it, she's at the bottom of the stairs.

"That's better," he breathes, crossing the distance in a few long strides.

"I'm honestly not sure what's going on," she giggles nervously, cursing herself for sounding so silly. She knows him, there shouldn't be butterflies erupting in her stomach right now, she tries to tell her stomach this but it doesn't respond to the criticism.

"What's going on is that I love you, Rose Weasley, and if you're okay with it, I'm going to kiss you right now."

And he does. And it's everything she always dreamt it would be.

**A/N: I'm not going to go into details right now about what's going on, but I've had a really, really hard night and it would make me feel a lot better if you'd just review. Please.**


	48. Excuses, Excuses

You may be asking: Where have I been? You're probably not, but I'm going to answer anyway. Well, I'm doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I'm actually almost 30,000 words in, and that's all one story, one plot. And new characters that sprung entirely from my head. If you've enjoyed my writing thus far, let me know. I am actually hoping to edit the crap out of this draft and then edit some more (and some more) and then try to publish. Think I could do it?

Thank you for staying with me, I promise some more fanfic for you eventually. If you really want to read something I've written, you can privately message me and I'll send you the link to a piece I've had published online :D


	49. Lying to Him

**This one's been a long time coming. It is, as a remarkable number of these stories are, based off of my life. Just a little bit, not too blatantly this time. I am ending 2011 single, and happy about that, but it does make writing romance a little tough.**

**I completed NaNo, by the way, winning with 50,001 words on November 27th. Since then I have not written a word of creative writing. Literally, not a word. But I started thinking about this boy and then I couldn't not write anymore, you know? It's always the best when the story just comes out of your fingers effortlessly, demanding nothing more than a keyboard a few cups of tea. **

**Different style, because y'all know how I love playing with style. I hope you can actually follow this, as it is a non-linear timeline (I'm quickly falling in love with reading fics like this, so I thought I should write one or two). **

**Word count: 2,097**

"**You are my sweetest downfall,**

**I loved you first, I loved you first."**

**-Regina Spektor 'Samson'**

"Something got you down?" He asks. It's late at night, her eyes glazed over in thought as the fire crackles with quiet irregularity. She's sitting on a large velvet chair, curled up so that her chin rests on her knees.

_Five years ago, the two of them met on a sunny afternoon. She had bumped into him while walking with Katy Dean, the girls chatting animatedly about some silly nonsense. He had stopped abruptly, turning around to chime in on their conversation. Katy had giggled and Rose had looked at him like he had two heads, finding his contribution to the discussion both incredibly rude and incredibly idiotic._

_He'd never forget the way the sunshine made her eyes sparkle or the way the wind mischievously toyed with her hair, musing it and causing the wispy strands to tickle her face. _

"Nothing's wrong, I'm fine." Her voice is hollow. She doesn't turn her head to look at the boy she knows is standing right behind her. She knows he's wearing a black cashmere sweater, the luxurious fabric emphasizing the creamy paleness of his skin. She knows his fingers are pale, his circulatory system always failing to warm his extremities sufficiently. She knows that he probably had the turkey for dinner, though she hadn't looked towards him, not once, during the meal. And she knows that he'll keep standing there until she either fesses up or the sun rises. He's always been a stubborn one.

_He sat behind her in Defense Against the Dark Arts, a class taught by an old man with a tired voice. They'd talk before class began, exchanging pleasantries with the easy smiles of children. She made friends and he made friends and some of the friends were the same, so the two found themselves together frequently. They began to talk, sticking to shallow subjects or debates that always were finished with rosy cheeks and broad smiles. They were a match for intelligence, both smart. He was funny and she was friendly and they were kind of opposites but also almost identical in that way that seems impossible until you see it for yourself. And somewhere down the line, they became friends._

"Are you sure? You don't look too fine." Her face is pale, that glittering smile long forgotten. Her fingers nervously twitch at her sides, drumming the air with manic imprecision. Those long lean fingers, accustomed to cradling a harp and extracting music that sounded angelic now pull frantically at the air, unconsciously looking for a beautiful sound and the accompanying tranquility that came with music. There is silence.

_They had just been kids, wide eyed to the world, innocence overflowing. They had been best friends, playing hopscotch outside while the older students exhaled smoke and tried to look cool. They had worn ratty sweaters and dirty sneakers and honestly didn't care what anyone said. Her hair fell, long and chocolate brown, down her back. His blue eyes always had a light in them, and his lips were always quick with a joke. They didn't think it was strange to be friends; the two were far too young for the knowledge of the politics of relationships. He liked her and she liked him and so they played games outside and pretended that they didn't realize that at some point they'd be too old for all of that._

"I'm fine, I swear." She tells him. He moves closer, coming around the chair to face her. She looks down at the fire to avoid his knowing gaze. His arm twitches, muscle memory demanding he raise his had to brush the wayward strands of hair out of her face. He didn't move and she didn't meet his eye and they both exhale loudly at the same time.

_Days of friendship had become weeks, then months. Mara Dean lost her first kiss to a boy in third year. The scandal had rocked the first years, reminding them of the world of teenage possibility that awaited. Eyes fixed on the happy brunette and the grinning blonde, whispers were spread and the two were literally pushed together. Boys and girls just can't be friends, they were told, we think you should date. That word followed Rose, echoing in the hallways where the two tried to walk in peace. Date, date, date, just kiss him already. _

"What's wrong, Posie?" He asks, and the nickname, so reminiscent of their shared past, slips right in. His voice is deeper now, of course, but it still sounds just like it always used to. She blinks back a tear, fighting the urge to scream or cry, though she doesn't know which.

_It had been raining that day, the two were trapped inside of the spacious library. He had been showing her an equation she couldn't understand. They both leaned over the parchment, heads bumping as his fingers, pale from the cold, indicated to the various processes involved. She lamented the day math became letters and not numbers and he ruffled her hair and made a crack at her intelligence. She corrected his grammar and everything was completely as it had always been until all the breath left her body and her palms began to sweat. They were quiet for a moment, so close she could taste the peppermint on his breath._

She sighs, her lips twitching downwards, "I told you," she says, just as stubborn as he always is, "I'm fine. I'm just thinking, that's all."

"_There you two are!" Katy had whipped around the bookshelf that been protecting them from the demands of the outside world. "I've been looking all over. Rose, could you explain the History essay to me? I don't even know what to write about!" Katy was a small girl with silky dark hair and skin the shade of hot cocoa with too much milk. She was animated, almost cartoonish in her absolute excitement for anything and everything. She spoke in all exclamation points, her smile always wide and her hands always dancing about, illustrating to the air exactly what she was trying to say._

_The moment shattered like glass. "Yeah," Rose said after a moment, her cheeks flushing, "I'll get out my notes and see what I have so far."_

_Katy's smile grew impossibly larger, "thanks!" and Rose reluctantly gathered her belongs and left, giving Scorpius one last apologetic look. He breathed shallowly, only recovering his wits once she was out of sight. _

He quirks an eyebrow, "you've always been an awful liar, we both know you can't think" And she chuckles just a little, the low laugh teased out of her only for old times' sake. The comment is so him, so everything he always has been and always will be, and that makes her smile but also makes the hole in her heart seem infinitely larger.

_A few nights later they sit by the fire, their ears filled with the scratching of quills and the snapping of the fire. The common room has long emptied, students drifting towards the dormitories with drooping eyes and shuffling feet. He was studying math and she was studying him. _

"_Do you think they're right?" She asked softly after a few minutes._

_He looked up at her, ink smudged on his cheek, "'bout what?" _

"_About girls and boys not being able to be friends." It felt like a pivotal moment to her, her heart racing a little as her mind whirred in a frantic attempt to keep up with her mouth._

_He thought for a moment, tapping his quill against the table, "but we're friends, right? So they must be wrong."_

_She thought to herself how daft he was, how thick and oblivious and utterly stupid. "Do you want to be friends?" She asked carefully._

"_Of course!" He said quickly, "you're nice, even if you are sometimes a humorless old hag." He smirked, obviously trying to get a rise out of her, but she had already decided the path of the conversation and she refused to let him skirt around the issue._

"_But is that all you want to be? Because," her voice wavered a little bit wit nerves, "I like you."_

"_I like you too," he said after a moment. _

"_I guess we just proved them all right," she said, a relieved smile splitting her face almost in two. _

"_Yeah, well," he grinned, reaching out a hand towards her, "be my girlfriend?"_

_Of course she said yes._

"I guess I just always figured that you'd be a big part of my life and it just kinda sucks that this is all we are. That's all." She can't hold back the hitch in her voice, and it cracks in all the wrong places. She feels like something inside of her is shattering, just admitting how much she misses him out loud seems to break every stitch that held her scarred skin together.

_They had been too young, playing with fire before even understanding how much it could burn. They could talk for hours and laugh for even longer, but their lips never touched and their hands never roamed. They were children, playing dress-up in roles far too mature for their few years._

_Nothing made it fall apart, really. Days turned to weeks, then months, and they talked a little less, only having quick conversations between classes. They grew up, going in separate directions very, very slowly. He came to her one day with an apology, telling her he couldn't play act, carry out the make-believe that he was ready for this, any more. He was too young to hold her heart, too scared to drop it. She was devastated, but, in the way of a child, healed soon enough. But the stitches holding her heart together were crooked and broken, she was not as flawless as she had once been._

"Rose," he says helplessly. He is not good with emotion, never has been. It's one of the reasons they didn't work out. He looks awkward, unsure of how to carry himself around the crying girl. He pats her back stiffly and she leans in to his touch, her breath catching as she tries to control the flood of emotion before it overwhelms the two of them.

"I miss you," she whispers.

"I'm right here," he points out, ever literal.

She smiles a watery smile, "that's not what I meant, idiot."

"I know," he says after a moment. She sits up, pushing herself off of his chest in an attempt to recover some dignity. "I miss you too." But that's all he says and it's not enough, they both know it'll never be enough.

She bites her lower lip, stands up, and walks away. "Goodbye, Scor," she tells him, her back to him.

"Goodbye Rose," he says, his heart sinking because it sounds so forever, so permanent.

Days turn to weeks, then months. They don't talk and it kills both of them a little bit but girls will be girls and boys will be boys and he has a new girlfriend, a pretty fifth year with bright red hair that cascades down her back like a waterfall and she has a boy whose eyes are the brightest blue and hands are always tender when they touch her.

"_I miss you," she had told him one night by the light of the crackling fire._

_He had said he missed her too, but not a word beyond that. She was devastated, but recovered from the blow eventually.._

_She never forgot him._

He finds himself unable to forget her.


	50. Stardust with Him

**Hey all, been a while.**

**I haven't been writing terribly frequently, but I pulled this together a few days ago and figured it deserved to see the light of day.**

**Review if you'd like more RosexScor, otherwise I might, just maybe, move to a new pairing. We'll see.**

Summer comes with cloudy days and puddles of mud. She twirls in the rain, picking up dizzying amounts of speed until she finds herself very much unable to stay upright. With a laugh that sounds like a hailstorm, she falls. There's water seeping through her skirt, feeling like ice on her fevered skin. The skirt soaks through and clings to her pale legs with transparent desperation.  
She sits there for an hour, head tilted towards the sky, and wonders if she's mad. 

xxxxxxxxx

"Dance with me," he had taken her hand and brushed his lips across her torn and dirty knuckles.  
She laughed, "but there's no music," she told him, her skin feeling like fire from his touch.  
"Listen," he said. She strained her her ears in the following silence, shaking her head when she heard nothing at all, "the rain is our drums, the rustling leaves our tamberines. The world is full of music, Posie, you just gotta listen."  
And so they danced. 

xxxxxxxxx

He had brown hair and eyes like oceans. He was just nobody, nobody at all, until the day that changed. He was a dreamer, quiet but never timid, only lost. And she found him sitting in a tree and all of a sudden he didn't blend into the wall anymore.  
And he took her hand and showed her the stars and how to dance in the rain. 

xxxxxxxxx

"What are we?" She asked him one day, studying his freckles with her emerald eyes. They trailed down his face, evidence of a thousand days beneath the sun, dreaming away reality in favor of a nicer world.  
"Stardust." He answered, "every single atom in your body came from the stars and will return to them one day."  
She considered his answer, her fingers tangled in his. "That's not what I meant."  
"I know."  
"Well?"  
"Well, what?"  
She sighed in patient exasperation, "well," she spoke slowly, "are you going to answer?"  
The corners of his mouth quirked up, "I already did." 

xxxxxxxxx

"People are unbearably fragile," he told her. There was a frosty meter of space between them and daggers shooting from her eyes.  
"I'm not," she spat, "overreacting."  
He took a step forward, arm stretched towards her, "I didn't say you were, just that we are all fragile and sometimes that's unbearable." His arms found their way around her and he held her tightly, as if afraid she'd fall apart. 

xxxxxxxxx

He loved her except when he didn't and it was driving her crazy. They were made of stardust and fallibilities and sometimes it didn't feel like it was quite enough. 

xxxxxxxxx

He finds here there, sprawled in the storm. "May I have this dance?" He asks, extending an arm down to her. She takes it and he brushes his lips over her torn and bruised knuckles.  
"What are we doing?" She asks a moment later.  
"Dancing,"  
"That's not what I meant."  
He breathes in deeply. Raindrops land on his eyelashes, glistening there for a long moment. "I know."  
"Why'd you do it?"  
There's a moment of silence that feels heavy and oppressive and she thinks she can't inhale the air when it's this thick. "Because," he says slowly, "humans are unbearably fragile, subject to whims, and also somehow incapable of foresight."  
She sighs quietly, "and where does that leave us?"  
His hand feels light on her back, barely touching the fabric that clings to her pale skin. "Here," he tells her, "it leaves us, no more than a collection of all the dead stars that have ever been, right here in the rain."  
"I wonder if I'm insane sometimes," and the words leap from her mouth so quickly she doesn't have time to realize that maybe she's lying. Maybe she thinks about it all the time.  
"I'll tell you a secret, Posie," he leans forward to confide in her, "all the best people are." 

xxxxxxxxx

They weren't anything so she really couldn't have cared when she found him and Marcy tangled together, all skin and teeth and lips. They really weren't anything, so she choked back a few sobs and held back the breathless laughter that wanted to spring from her lips with the devastating discovery that she was no more than stardust, no more than every star that had ever been, to him, not special only because of how ordinary it was to be made of a substance so extraordinary. They weren't anything, and sometimes that didn't feel like it was quite enough. 

xxxxxxxxx

He left her with the phantom pressure of his lips on her knuckles and she wondered if she was crazy for wishing he'd come back.


	51. Letter to Him

**I wrote this because.. Um… Why not?**

**Yeah.**

**I'm going to write something with a happy ending soon. I have a wonderful boy of almost three months (!) and it's far past time to acknowledge that there's something beautiful in a lack of tragedy and pain doesn't need to be the only fuel for art. If one can call fanfiction art, that is.**

My dear-

I thought I'd tell you that I wished today we'd fall in love again but then I thought better of it because your eyes begged for me to keep silent.

It's been three years and you're oh-so-happy with her. And I'm happy that you're happy but I know I could make you happier, if only you'd let me.

You won't. And that's perfectly alright, I don't blame you. As long as you can close those beautiful grey eyes and find a way to get to sleep at night, it's okay. I can't sleep anymore, not one wink. My head is filled with pictures of you and how your lips feel against mine.

I made a list of the things that I love less than I love you. It's a little belated but it's perfectly true. On it I wrote silly things, like the way rust clings to padlocks and the way the earth smells after the rain. I wrote about daffodils and the sound of the wind against the roaring ocean waves. I wrote dozens of such trivialities that don't hold a candle to you, which I suppose, was the purpose.

I'd tell you how I feel but it wouldn't be particularly eloquent. My words seem to disappear when you come by, which is terribly inconvenient given the fact that without words, I'm really nothing.

Sometimes when I feel like I'm really far away from you, I remember how the stars once exploded -a supernova of epic proportions- and how matter cannot be created nor destroyed and so we are part of that supernova. We are made from stardust and it makes me feel a little closer to you to consider the possibility that we were each crafted from the same star.

The sun set in the sky and the color of its rays right before it disappeared over the mountaintops reminded me of you today. I would've said something but I'm no longer very welcome in your life. And that's perfectly alright, I don't blame you. I just wonder how you can get to sleep at night. Don't you miss me?

My mother always told me that you can't cross a river if you've set fire to the bridge. I'm sorry about that. I would collect your ashes in a can and spread them over the sea if you'd let me but I'm positive that'd be too much to ask. I burnt you down and it's perfectly fair for you to treat me with so much ice because of it all.

I just wanted to say, I miss you.

I wished we'd fall in love again today. We didn't.

Yours,

Rose


	52. Running From Him

**I wrote this ages upon ages ago and have no clue why it wasn't published then. Anyway, take it or leave it or something. And now I'll proceed to write y'all that happy ending you've been promised. **

**Please note, this is a crazy universe in which Scor has a twin. Just go with it, yeah?**

She's going, going, gone, with hair like fire and sunshine and all that's sweet in the world. Her eyes are like the ocean, her lips, roses. Cinnamon is sprinkled liberally across her cheeks. She smells something like marshmallows and this surprises him, surely the sugary girl would have a kick, a bite? But no, even her smile is the furthest thing from sour. He doesn't know how she does it.

If anyone has the right to be bitter, to be broken, it's her. But she lets out big laughs that sound like bells. Or faeries. Or faeries landing on bells (he's not quite sure). And he can't breathe because no one he's ever met has looked this free. And damn, her happiness is contagious.

When her arm grazes him, he shivers. It's automatic, though nothing about her is mechanical. Sometimes he wonders if she hears music that plays too quietly for everyone else- there's always a rhythm to her movements. She's dancing through life, foxtrotting while the dull others waltz. He would love nothing more than to be her partner for just one song.

She sees him in the hall one day and her blue eyes light, her dainty chin tipping in his direction. In the most graceful nod he's ever encountered, she acknowledges his presence. He thinks that golden rays are emitting from his pores, the happiness so much he might burst. He can't even nod back for fear of breaking free of his skin with unconstrained delight. She knows he exists.

He catches her out one morning, sunlight in her hair and a breathless grin on her face. She's just finished a morning run, and the breeze still toys with her hair, bringing strawberry wisps up and irritatingly around her eyes. He wants to reach a calloused hand up and tuck the stray strands behind her ears, but he doesn't move a muscle. She, instead, sighs a patient huff and twirls the entirety of her hair into a bun on top of her head. She looks like a ballerina, he thinks, or an angel.

"I'm cutting it all off." She says. He thinks he might've misheard her. Her hair? Her precious, stunning, marvelous, luscious, incredible hair? Off? But she smiles a small smirk, reading his reaction at once, and he then knows he heard just what she said. Then he thinks she might be insane.

"You probably think I'm crazy," she says, fingering a loose strand, "but I'm just tired of it. It's annoying."

"It's beautiful," he says honestly, and it occurs to him all at once that this is their first conversation ever. And it's about hair. He briefly wonders what his brother would have to say about this.

His brother, Nicolas, is always getting on his case for the stumbling, bumbling awkwardness. Never have twins been more different, and they each are aware of that fact. One small, a little boy with a tiny voice and too big, stained sweatshirts; the other with the chiseled good looks of a model, a natural in social situations. Nick always knows what to say, and right now he could not be more jealous. He desperately wants to move the conversation on to something more meaningful, or maybe less, he can't tell, but he doesn't because he doesn't know how and she's stealing his breath and thoughts and oh! she's speaking, he should pay attention.

"It's a nuisance." He stares silently, unable to come up with an adequate response. He'd bow to his knees and beg, grovel, for the hair which cannot speak, but that'd be the epitome of weirdness and he'd never get another chance to speak to such a goddess as Lily, so he doesn't. She mistakes his silence for disinterest and gives a small wave and an even smaller smile, and then turns and walks off.

He's not sure what he should've said to make her stay.

The next day, he finds her jogging with hair only an inch long. It gleams and sparkles and makes her eyes look bigger, bluer. He tells her she looks wonderful. She smiles and waves and jogs away.

The next time he sees her, she's standing in the middle of the street in the pouring rain. The cobblestoned roads are slick with water and the heel of her stiletto is caught in a crack between the rocks. He bends down at her feet and pulls the shoe. It takes a surprising amount of effort, but he frees it from the confines of the crack. She slips her foot back in and thanks him with a peck on the cheek from her rain moist lips. He blushes crimson and she's gone within moments, her impractical shoes clacking her departure. He, as always, wonders why he didn't stop her and why she was always running in the opposite direction.

Time passes. They're dating. It's marvelous and she's still beautiful, the years having taken not an ounce of loveliness from her face or form. He's now wearing collared shirts, the kind that come wrapped in nice boxes, and fancy ties from department stores. He works in a big office with lots of important people, and he's fought his way from the coffee boy to the top. The time has done him well, his features becoming more angular and his voice falling in pitch. She greets him every morning with a kiss and he can count on her falling into his bed, the sheets tangling and twisting until the two of them go to sleep, skin brushing and tall hose old fireworks still igniting.

She's yelling at him. He's made a mistake, misspoken, and she's crying. He wants her to stop, to shut up and listen so he can fix this because they shouldn't be screaming and she shouldn't be weeping but she slaps him and he pushes her. He didn't mean to, but the new strength manhood has given him had been underestimated in his light shove. Her head hits the wall and it makes a crack and then there's silence. And it's the worst quiet he's ever heard.

Life whirls back into place and she shrieks with pain like he's never heard before. Anguish, though her throbbing head hasn't connected as a source of hurt. Her heart is on fire and under her eyes are black rivers of mascara. She turns her heel and walks away. He tries to catch up, grab her arm, explain that he didn't mean to, he'd never mean to, hurt her. She hears his approaching footsteps and breaks into a run.

He doesn't know what to say to stop her, so she just leaves, and there's no smile or wave. And it occurs to him just then, no matter what role she'd play in his life, she'd never stay. And that would always be his fault.

**If you liked it, review. If you didn't, review. If you're neutral about the whole thing, review. Sensing a pattern here?**


	53. Lines like Them

**Okay, I'll write a happy ending for you all soon. I promise. It was inspired by something I saw once online and the mountain of math homework that's currently surrounding me. I take no credit for the idea behind their conversation, but I do think it's rather brilliant (and entirely tragic). Please enjoy my IB Calculus procrastination method of choice!**

And she looks at the math, the stacks of unruly papers and carefully solved equations, and bursts into tears. The f(x)s and vectors and integrals and derivatives and every last calculation of the binomial distribution.

He walks in the room and looks at her like she's gone insane. There are dark smudges under her eyes from the sleepless nights and the mascara and her pale hands are trembling. And there's math absolutely everywhere.

"It's just so sad," she tries to tell him. He's seated across from her, demanding to know the cause of the sobs. He doesn't touch her, doesn't hold her, doesn't do anything but stare at her from across what seems an insurmountable distance but is actually only the common room's coffee table.

"Sad?" He repeats, eyebrows arching. She can see the smirk that's teasing around his lips, the 'this girl's possibly mental' smirk that he always seem to adopt in her presence. She wants to smack it off of him, but can't bring herself to lift her arm.

"Yeah," she says and her voice hitches a little bit. Her nose is red from crying, her hair falling out of the bun she had thrown it in to keep it out of the way of her studies. "Look at it all, it's so tragic."

He stares a little longer, convinced she's crazy. "What's tragic is that you're in here studying for arithmetic instead of, you know, having a life." All the other students are out partying. It's the end of their seventh year and everyone knows Evan Dean brought enough booze to down the school for a good three days. She's curled up on the common room's couch, the blue velvet luxuriously cradling her small form as she weeps over the numbers that may prove insignificant but now seem crucial.

"Look at this," she hands him a graph. It's two parallel lines, points smudged in a few places by her tears. "Isn't it the saddest thing you've ever seen?"

He thinks that she might be a lunatic and wonders what the proper treatment for a girl who has lost her mind might possibly be.

"They're always so close," she explains, wiping an impatient hand across her eyes in an attempt to reclaim some lost dignity, "but they'll never ever touch. And I thought that there couldn't be anything worse in the world and then I saw this," she hands him a similarly speckled graph of two intersecting lines, "they meet once and part ways forever. And that seems like the saddest thing ever."

His smirk falls away as he studies the graphs. They're basic, just sketches of no particular equation. He just looks at the two pieces of paper for a while, staring downward as her heart breaks yet again over lines that'll never touch or else will, but not for long. After a while, he says, "cubic functions have always made me feel a little melancholy." She smiles because it's like he understands what she was saying even though she's not quite sure what that was. He continues, "They get close for a moment and then move infinitely farther apart. Outwards into the universe, maybe to never be that close to another function ever again."

The two sit in companionable silence for a little while, the mind of each occupied with the idea of equations and the tragedy of math. "Why aren't you out there having fun?" she finally asks, gesturing towards the dungeons and the common room where the end of the year party is taking place.

"Sine and cosine graphs, too. Always bouncing between two points, never settling. Like they can't find what they want, or else they can but they're constantly getting pushed away."

A question forms in her mind and almost leaps to her lips. She can't hold it in but can't vocalize it and she wonders if he knows why she was sitting, alone, in the common room on a Friday evening crying over math.

"We don't have to be," he says finally, as if he understands. He leans forward and presses his lips to hers. It's a quiet kiss, no passion but incalculable amounts of tenderness.

"So we're not parallel lines," she whispers as they break away. "But those aren't the saddest, anyway."

He gets a job at the Ministry and she works as an author and they never speak again, time bringing rise to a wall neither has the courage to climb.

She feels tears prickle her eyes every time she sees perpendicular lines.

**Please do review.**


	54. Loving Him More

**Firstly, so sorry about all the emails and confusion yesterday. This wasn't working very well but I think I got it now.**

**Word count: 845 (I really have to work on that murder mystery, it'll be longer)**

**Song to listen to: Speechless by Lady Gaga (I am, pun intended, gaga for this song. It's beautiful)**

She stands alone in the dark field and the only thing that runs through her mind is a notice of the absolute silence. It's so quiet and she honestly doesn't know if she could make a sound if she tried.

It is day eleven and she is speechless.

**.**

She keeps her mouth shut because if she doesn't bugs and lies will come flying out and buzz around their heads, making hideous noises and painfully stinging all exposed skin. He's saying something about something and maybe it's important but all of her focus is on pretending her jaw is wired shut and she envisions it for so long that her teeth begin to ache and she starts to wonder if she'll ever talk again.

But he's saying soft words and looking at her like he's afraid she'll explode, like she's seething and bubbling beneath the surface, a creature ready to leap from her skin and pounce at him. She wants to say that she's okay but she's so tired of all the lies.

It is day one.

**.**

Sometimes she cries into her pillow. All the "you bastard"s and the "stay"s and the "how could you?"s that she forgot to say or forgot how to say or maybe both. She screams in her mind, though not opening her mouth at all, until her throat is raw and her tongue is dry and she wonders if this is what healing feels like. She doesn't think so. She thinks she might shatter if a breeze flutters over her skin. She thinks she might catch on fire and burn to nothing if the stars shine too bright. She thinks that she's a little broken and she's not sure if she'll ever be whole again, she's not even sure if she ever was.

He asked, "are you okay?" she remembers. She should have said "no".

It's day nine and the sun has been absent for an eternity.

**.**

"I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you," his mouth on her neck and her teeth biting her lower lip and both their eyes closing for a moment in the ecstasy of skin touching skin.

"I love you more."

She can't even think for his fingers at her waist, skating small circles into the sensitive flesh.

"That's impossible because I love you the most."

She wonders how soon he'll take back those words.

**.**

Maybe if she could stay silent for an eternity, she could turn to stone. She'd freeze and remain an immortal and tragic reminder of every broken promise and lie. And maybe her story would be repeated by hushed voices and everyone would sigh "how tragic" and maybe they'd weep for the little girl and her lost words.

Or maybe they'd forget her and she'd finally be alone in the silence. She doesn't know if she'd mind either.

Day three comes to a close with a total lack of coherent thought in her head and a multitude of tears sobbed out onto her pillow.

**.**

"I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you," his mouth on her neck and her teeth biting her lower lip and both their eyes closing for a moment in the ecstasy of skin touching skin.

"I love you more."

Her heart is breaking, shattering into a thousand shards. She mouths the next line along with him, watching his hands skate another girl's waist, drawing small circles that she can feel mirrored on her own flesh.

"That's impossible because I love you the most."

And that's about when she realizes that he never really could have meant it. She had always loved him most, anyway.

It's day one and she's found him tangled up with another girl, his lips pressed to someone else's and his fingers knotting into her hair and his words painfully floating to her ears. She really wishes she couldn't hear his lies anymore but she stands, transfixed and horrified, until he sees her and rushes towards her.

It's day one and she can't even yell at him, can't even cry, can't even say that no, she's not okay because this betrayal seems to be breaking her and stealing her words and she doesn't know if she'll ever be whole, ever talk, again.

**.**

She stands alone in the dark field and the only thing that runs through her mind is a notice of the absolute silence. It's so quiet and she honestly doesn't know if she could make a sound if she tried.

She opens her mouth and screams.

The next morning the sun rises and glues her back together and she feels a little more whole and a lot less broken.

It's a new day one and she's found her voice and maybe, just maybe, she's going to be okay.

**.**

**Please review and tell me if it made any sense at all!**


	55. Okay with Him

**A/N: Wow, it's been awhile. **

**I've been working on LE/JP stuff lately. It's all I've been reading (aside from, you know, real books), all I've been writing, and all I've been thinking about.**

**That being said, Scorpius wanted to be written and I miss Rose. So, I wrote you all a little ficlet. It's weird. It breaks the fourth wall (meta-fiction, hooray!). I've never done anything like it and I likely never will again. But, eh, it's 1037 words and if you want to read it, you might as well.**

He's the kind of boy that draws girls to him like bees to honey. She remembers nothing of him save his mind, but what a beautiful mind it is.

They correspond through owl, through floo, through letters mailed in honest to god mail boxes with honest to go stamps to pay for their travels. They talk and talk and she thinks that his words have a certain kind of magic that she can't make with a wave of her wand.

If this were a normal love story, she'd be stupefied. She'd resist before falling madly in love with a boy who's dreams were bigger than the stars and he'd love her back and they'd write letters to the moon just to prove that their love was so out of the world that an extraterrestrial could chance upon it and feel the emotion vibrating off the stained pages and know that somewhere, somehow, two people were crazy about each other.

I haven't promised you a love story. I've simply told you that they talk about everything and he's put her under his spell as he's done to so many girls before. In fact, this isn't a love story at all.

Maybe the not-love stories you've read have a girl who falls apart, maybe the tragedy is in the way her pieces splay on a cold marble floor and you feel sorry for her or you feel a kinship with her or maybe she repulses you because you're terrified you'll be where she is sometime soon. Don't worry, you will be, but that's not the point either. Because this is Rose Weasley we're talking about and she's not going to fall apart over a boy. She'll take their almost love story and build it into a giant paper airplane which she'll then fly towards him in Charms and he'll read it and smile and nod and change the topic because he really wants to talk about Sarah or Carmen or Brittany or how he's read a really good history book or, honestly, anything but how he feels. And she's okay with hearing how he feels, she relishes in the details, the little things that are private that he shares like windows into his guarded life.

He's a smart boy, he knows exactly how hot the stove is and you could not pay him enough money to touch it and get burned.

She tells him that she and Jonathan have been together for seven months. He tells her that he can't stand Jessica. She tells him that she thinks she's not that smart but sometimes she's frightened that she really is. He tells her about the storm of angry people that took apart his home and his life and left him with nothing. She tells him something and he response cheekily and she laughs and Jonathan asks what's so funny and she says nothing and it all happens again. And again. And again.

She has known love. She still knows it, the kind of tug-at-your-cheeks love that makes you go from crying to laughing in moments. The kind of love that makes you want to scream or whisper or both because you're addicted to the rush of those three words and you're addicted to their breathless response. She knows the quickening of the heartbeat and the fluttering of ten thousand butterflies as the boy does something stupidly innocent, like grabbing her hand or kissing her or wrapping her up into a never-ending hug until she can smell his unique scent, his cologne of shampoo and soap and skin, for hours.

She knows love and this isn't it. But she finds herself thinking of him all the time. She knows what'll make him laugh, make him argue back, make him pull a face or crack a joke or smile. She knows not to inflate his already huge head and not to push personal buttons but to always ask for more details because he's so used to nobody listening that he's not so great at sharing but he's dying to spill out his life's tale, one postage stamp at a time.

Don't get your hopes up, she can'tcan'twon't tease out a confession of love from him. He loves someone else. Maybe. Or maybe he just feels as close to love as possible for him, a weird mixture of possession and affection and admiration. But, regardless of the chemical make-up of his emotions, the label she'd affix to how he feels, it's not for her or towards her.

And she's okay with that.

She's the kind of okay with that that allows a smile, a friendly hug. A joking and laughing and teasing and giving advice because he's clueless about Jessica and Sarah and Carmen and whoever the girl is this week. He doesn't know how to talk sometimes, but she's okay with that. She's okay with silence in a way that very few people are. She's okay with his heart being somewhere else as he hunches over a desk to write a few quick lines to her.

She has to be okay with it- she's playing the same game. She tells him one thousand things that don't mean a thing and one thing that does and it goes over his head or maybe not because the boy has a memory like a steel trap and she wants to scream sometimes because he's wrong for her but she doesn't because he's not anything to her anyways. And she's okay with that.

If this were a love story, she'd kick and scream and fight and plead for him to look her way. She'd march right up and plant a kiss on his downturned lips and tell him to forget Sarah, Jessica, Carmen. She'd tell him she wasn't okay and wasn't happy and wanted him, or something like that.

Instead she clutches her boyfriend's hand, pretends his cologne of shampoo and soap and skin doesn't make her nose wrinkle just a bit, and tries to forget the boy with the beautiful mind who writes on postcards one thousand things that don't matter and not one that does.

And she's not okay with that because this wouldn't be the love story it is if she was.


	56. Adventures with Him

**Another 2:00 piece. **

**I kind of really like this one. It's a different kind of Rose and I'm shockingly fond of her. It also totally didn't get away from me, which is awesome and rare.**

**I don't know, I just enjoyed writing it a lot more than the average one shot.**

**Listening to: The Head and the Heart's Pandora station. Lots of Mumford and Florence and all that good stuff. You can definitely see the mellow music in this piece.**

**Word count: 2,004**

_**:-:**_

"Run away with me," he says one night and she thinks he's crazy but also kind of perfect so she takes his hand and says nothing, just staring at him with those big, green eyes. He cups her cheek and gives her a soft kiss and she pulls away, surveying him for a long moment. The moonlight makes his skin glow silver and she wonders if he's an angel sent from above to corrupt her or something like that. "Come on, Rosie, let's just get out of here for once. Let's have an adventure."

"Why?" she asks and it comes out as a breath.

He pauses for a kiss. "Because I'm tired of not living."

_**:-:**_

They're on a train and the stars are streaming past faster than she can count them and it feels achingly lonely but also like art, so she sighs and pulls herself closer to him.

It's been a month since they left home and they're living campsite to campsite, apperating to Gringots for more money when they truly go broke. They hitch rides on the roofs of trains or the backs of strangers' cars and danger seems as commonplace as kisses, as routine as the mundane tasks they fled from.

She finds herself wondering how this is living but also finds herself not caring, too desperate to see every moss-covered tree and every star and every little expression his face makes. Maybe living's in the noticing, the small details that don't get lost when you're truly lost.

"We're so small," he notes and she agrees but says nothing, feeling the rumble of the train beneath her prone body. "Ever think there's anything else out there?"

She doesn't answer him and he plants a kiss on the top of her head, assuming she's asleep.

_**:-:**_

She stamps neon across the sky, a giant sign that reads "we were here" and is followed by the looping cursive of her signature against the stars.

He sees it and laughs, pulling her closer and placing his mark on her with a bit of her neck that makes her mark the night with a low moan. He claims her as his and she bares his ownership proudly, back arched and head rolled back, a crescent of white teeth peeking over her persimmon lips. She lets him win the battle with the full intention of winning the war, trading him her tensed muscles and heavy breaths for the hours later of closeness.

He might have her now but she'll have him forever and this trade seems a good one for each involved party. She carves herself a place in his heart, nestling in between arteries and veins and pumps in a manner that's always present but never obtrusive, a tattoo by his lungs that announces, "This man is all Rose Weasley's."

She smiles in shy triumph, a finger on the skin directly above her place in his chest. Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy were here, two people who were in love once upon a time, and they announce this in broken twigs and misty breaths and, yes, florescent letters across the night sky.

It's not that they want to leave something for a wandering and wondering posterity, but more that they crave to be bigger than themselves. They're seventeen years old and they're finally old enough to understand that even children with famous names mean nothing, nothing at all, to the vastness of the universe. They're seventeen years old and nowhere near wise enough to know that all the moreness they want can be found in each other, so they instead stamp their message on the passing clouds and get lost in each other's eyes instead of the galaxies rolling by.

_**:-:**_

The side of the road they're walking along is hot and it's burning the soles of her feet. They stop and sip at water, resting in a meadow as the clouds lazily drift on.

"What happens after this?" She asks and he gives her a curious look. "I mean, we can't stay away forever."

He considers her. "I don't know. Hell, I don't even care. This is about now, about us, about being so fucking alive where the air is clean and we aren't and nothing matters but this-" He kisses her.

"I feel like we're just running away," she tells him.

He tucks a flyaway strand of fiery hair behind one of her shell pink ears. "Is that such a bad thing?"

She looks at him with those big, sad green eyes. "It's a cowardly thing." And she knows it's the wrong thing to say but it's been weighing her heart down since they left. His eyes turn cold and she knows he's hurt but she's a Weasley and her blood bleeds red and gold. She learned to rather death than fleeing.

He can't stop remembering his first years at Hogwarts, his father broken down by the war and the humiliation and his mother only as kind as a person can reasonably be. Meek and small, the boy with platinum hair and long fingers plucked notes from the air and hid in the music to escape the harsh and cruel world. He understands the value of getting away, what being left alone is worth because sometimes reality isn't tolerable and sometimes not being a superhero means doing what feels right, not what is right, and sometimes that means hopping on a half a dozen trains and getting away from judgmental smirks with a beautiful girl and an infinite sky.

He fears more than anything that she'll hate him for what he's not, but he honestly cannot fathom pigheaded bravery that would have him rot instead of run.

It's a little cliché, but it starts to rain right then and the meadow turns to mud and neither speaks to the other as they trek to a distant grove for shelter.

_**:-:**_

Things fall apart as they have the tendency to do- slowly at first and then collapsing in one big shuddering heave that leaves her feeling hollow and him feeling numb and them both lost in the English countryside.

_**:-:**_

She wanders fields of lavender and there's not a person in sight, good news for her aching heart. She's living off of the heat of the stars and the beads of rain that catch on her eyelashes and stay there, droplets that glisten and flow and roll down her cheeks and she remembers her tears.

She can't go home because home is where the heart is and she doesn't want to find her heart right about now. Instead she wants to ramble, to roam and move and never settle in one place. Settling means becoming accustomed and becoming accustomed makes things hurt so much more when they're torn away.

_**:-:**_

He's staying in a farmhouse. It's the home of an older man and an older woman and their cat, Helga.

The two found him in the pouring rain, shivering and chattering and babbling about some girl with hair like flames and eyes like emeralds. They took him in and wrapped his shoulders with blankets and his heart with warmth and gave him kind smiles and chicken soup until he felt like he could breath again.

"Tell me about her," Nancy, the matronly woman said. He glanced out the window and over to the faraway green peaks of rolling hills dotted with fields of some sort of crop.

"She's brave and stubborn and stupid. She never says what she's thinking and sometimes she talks before considering what her words mean. She's a perfectionist and incapable of letting go. She's awful at dancing and terrible at thinking outside of the box. She doesn't know how to relax and she doesn't smile very often."

Nancy takes his hand. Her own feels like paper against his skin, whisper light and spotted with age. "And you love her, don't you?"

"More than anything," he breaths and he's sobbing now but Nancy doesn't look alarmed.

_**:-:**_

She pays her way into a town without a name where people without faces living on streets without numbers. She rents a room and buys herself books and coffee and pretends there's no world outside her window even though she had previously explored the vastness of it, even once infected by his desire to understand it all.

She devours bread and sleeps on an honest to Merlin bed and can't close her eyes sometimes for lack of the light of the summer moon.

_**:-:**_

"When I was your age, I met that beautiful woman over there. I saw her and knew, just knew, that she was it. I got down on one knee a year later and she's been mine ever since. And I'm the luckiest man alive. If you really love that girl, go get her. If she's all that you say she is, then why are you here?"

"She doesn't want me anymore."

Henry scoffs a tobaccoed wheeze. "You never stop loving someone, m'boy, you only stop trying to run after them when they walk away. The trick is to show her you mean to stay and then to do just that."

Nancy gives her husband a smile. "And I know just how," she tells the boy, handing him a small box.

Scorpius shakes Henry's hand and hugs a teary Nancy and turns his back on the refuge of their home for the open road and the memory of freckled skin and persimmon lips.

_**:-:**_

He finds her in a café, eyes glued to a book and lips fanning warm air over her steaming coffee.

"Marry me." He slides into the seat across from her.

She looks up, showing no surprise at his arrival. "Why?"

"It'll be an adventure," he tells her, "you'll yell and scream and nag and I'll drink and complain and we'll fight like hell but I love you, damn it, and I'm not ever going to stop loving you so you might as well accept that and accept what we'll be together, which is utterly and absolutely perfect. Marry me because you're meant to be with me and I'm meant to be with you and anything less than that isn't really living. Aren't you tired of not living?"

_**:-:**_

They return home in the fall to family dinners and teary mothers that exclaim over the pair's long absence and the glittering diamond on Rose's ring finger.

Life falls into a routine that they make an effort to upset as frequently as possible, going for late night walks on cobblestoned roads and sometimes taking a weekend to runaway into the woods, exploring every inch of this planet they're tethered to.

_**:-:**_

Henry and Nancy wipe away a few crystal tears at the wedding, the latter loudly and proudly admiring the ring that was once her own.

"That's one for the storybooks," Henry remarks to his wife, watching the glowing couple dance to a slow and beautiful song.

"They really do love each other," Nancy smiles.

The old man extends his arm, taking her small hand in his own, "can I have this dance?"

He twirls his wife, teasing a laugh out of her as they revert to swaying to the music.

"Remember when we ran away together?" She asks, the familiar and comfortable pressure of his hand at her waist making her body feel liquid and warm. "What an adventure we had!"

"And it never ended," Henry says, pulling her close.

_**:-:**_

**Please don't favorite without reviewing. Also, on a related note, please review!**


	57. About Him

**I'm so not sure what this is or where it came from. I've been writing fragments and leaving them like a trail of cookie crumbs to follow my most recent love story back to my chest, where my heart should belong, so I can rely on getting out of this mess safely, but I haven't done much with the small ramblings. I just figured it was time to publish something, so I wrote.**

**I think this love story doesn't have a happy ending, but I'm not entirely certain it's a love story at all, so maybe it doesn't need one.**

**Words: 1,167**

You're just the boy with the most pretentious name and I'm just biting my tongue until I taste blood because it's hard to remember sometimes the metallic tang of silence. I don't know what's expected of me so I repeat the words "I am sorry" like a prayer because my mouth hangs open otherwise and I need something to cling to. I need something to hold.

If you are a star, I will flatter myself as another and we'll paint constellations across the empty night sky with our words, words, words. And oh! what we will say. The hours we will spend chattering away about nothing and everything and all this, every last sentence, just to delude ourselves. The thing they never tell you about stars is the danger of romanticizing them. We shine bright, so bright, but we're an infinity apart and I can't draw you closer. I can't write the lightyears away and maybe that's the definition of tragedy.

Sometimes I look in a mirror just to remind myself I exist and then you break the glass and I fall for a little while. I'm not sure of much anymore, not sure of what I'm doing and who I am because I'm much more lost now than I have ever been before. This is home, I tell you, and my lips quiver a little because I've never been a good liar. This is home and it is burning. This city is on fire with the hundred places I'd rather we be.

Your fingers linger and I can't think of much except how haphazard things always start and how neatly they end up. I can tuck our story into a nice little box and tie it with a ribbon. Story structure dictates that we have a beginning, middle, and end, but I've always muddled the parts together and I've never been one for linear timelines and I'm getting more than a little confused because I don't know where to start. I could start at the sun, maybe, and trace my steps back to your door but my knocking goes unanswered sometimes and I'm tired of taking journeys across oceans to arrive home to silence.

I want to be the girl to make you smile but I'm not sure what jokes to tell and I'm not sure how to know what your laugh sounds like anymore and I'm worried my heart is too heavy for you to understand my brand of comedy. I'm just the girl with eyes like dinner plates and you're just the boy I wrote a poem about. The poem detailed the defenestration of a kitchen, the destruction of a set of china. I want to tell you that, tell you how much I long to rip into your skin and lay ruin to all that is pristine because I want to tell you that it's alright to not be perfect. I don't want to tell you that I scribble poetry in the margins of my notes, so I don't bother to mention the rest.

I can imagine us in twenty years, we are seated at a café in Spain with coffee mugs clutched in our hands. This is the date you've always looked for, the girl you hunted a world over just to find at your doorstep too late. I'm that perfect breed of mistake that will loosen your tie and take you by your hand until you do something crazy. You know I fit you like a glove, cling to your right hand and keep the chill from seeping into your bones. You know I'm the type of girl they write songs about and I know you play guitar and probably have a melody just for me.

I'm a beautiful girl with hands like ravens and a soul like a swallow and you swear you don't want to cage me but I see the way you eye me up. So I move a little closer and I whisper nothings in your ear because the sky is open and lonely, and I've never been good at being on my own.

I've been mourning the death of my teenage years the way one mourns a comatose lover. I'm forgetting what the nights on the beach, a little booze and a fire, are supposed to feel like against my freckled skin and I'm forgetting how sweetly boys roll my name off their tongues when they are trying to charm me into bed. Maybe I've never known the good times they write books about, or maybe everything I've learned has led me to the anticlimactic days of my early adulthood, the weeks filled with libraries and tea and boys who never do more than kiss my cheek.

You told me once that you believe in love and I believed in it too, in that moment and for the first time, because I believed in you more than I had ever had faith in anything else. I've since been betrayed by each shooting star that's pierced the sky and I've cursed your name every time. The thing about expectations is that they rise like the tide and whittle away at the walls you've built up to keep the disappointment out until you're flooded. I'd rather be a ship than a house, though, so I can bail the water from my cabins and keep paddling out to sea. I'd rather forget where I've come from so I can get where I'm going without the pains of loneliness you inspire. I've never been homesick for a place that isn't home, but I am now and I suppose that's just growing up or maybe that's just falling in love. I can't tell the difference anymore.

I'm a cynic and a romantic and you're a little boy who's always wanted to be a superhero. I'm no damsel but I'm in distress because I'm awfully good at self-destruction, terribly wonderful at ruining everything, and always so talented at making things fall apart. If I offered you a poisoned apple, you'd turn your back and I'd take a bite because I've always been spiteful like that.

There's a moment every night when your words become lazy with sleep and you wish me sweet dreams and almost throw in an "I love you" but cover it up with a hurried "goodnight." You don't think I've noticed, but I live for that heartbeat because it's easiest to play pretend when there's another actor on stage. It's easiest to romanticize the boy with a movie star name when he's reading lines off of a script and lying to the moon.

"I'm sorry," I'll tell you one day and you'll know what it's for. I'm a mixture of irrationality and sense and I know you can't find logic in the way I grip your fingers when I see you smile, but I'm trying the best I can. They say home is where the heart is and my chest is aching because it's you. It's always been you.

**Reviews would literally make my night. I've noticed a huge decrease in the number of reviews on each chapter and it makes me sad. I don't share my writing outside of this website (aside from one little thing, which I'll detail in the A/N of the next chapter if/when I feel like writing) and I love getting feedback.**


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